This is a personal essay about my failed attempt to convince effective altruists to become socialists. I started as a convinced socialist who thought EA ignored the 'root causes' of poverty by focusing on charity instead of structural change. After studying sociology and economics to build a rigorous case for socialism, the project completely backfired as I realized my political beliefs were largely psychological coping mechanisms.
Here are the key points:
- Understanding the "root cause" of a problem doesn't necessarily lead to better solutions - Even if capitalism causes poverty, understanding "dynamics of capitalism" won't necessarily help you solve it
- Abstract sociological theories are mostly obscurantist bullshit - Academic sociology suffers from either unrealistic mathematical models or vague, unfalsifiable claims that don't help you understand or change the world
- The world is better understood as misaligned incentives rather than coordinated oppression - Most social problems stem from coordination failures and competing interests, not a capitalist class conspiring against everyone else
- Individual variation undermines class-based politics - People within the same "class" have wildly different cognitive traits, interests, and beliefs, making collective action nearly impossible
- Political beliefs serve important psychological functions - They help us cope with personal limitations and maintain self-esteem, often at the expense of accuracy
- Evolution shaped us for competition, not truth - Our brains prioritize survival, status, and reproduction over understanding reality or being happy
- Marx's insights, properly applied, undermine the Marxist political project - His theory of ideological formation aligns with evolutionary psychology, but when applied to individuals rather than classes, it explains why the working class will not overthrow capitalism.
In terms of ideas, I don’t think there’s anything too groundbreaking in this essay. A lot of these ideas have been in the EA/rationalist water supply for a long time, but hopefully this might serve as a cautionary tale for anyone else who might be tempted by a similar intellectual project. Or, perhaps an interesting case study about the formation of ideological beliefs at the intersection of leftist politics and effective altruism.
At risk of further psychoanalyzing the author, it seems like they're naturally more convinced by forms of evidence that EAs use, and had just not encountered them until this project. Many people find different arguments more compelling, either because they genuinely have moral or empirical assumptions incompatible with EA, or because they're innumerate. So I don't think EA has won some kind of objective contest of ideas here.
Nevertheless this was an interesting read and the author seems very thoughtful.
Yes, nothing in this post seems less likely than an EA trying to convince socialists to become EAs and subsequently being convinced of socialism.
Yeah, because I believe in EA and not in the socialist revolution, I must believe that EA could win some objective contest of ideas over socialism. In the particular contest of EA -> socialist vs socialist -> EA conversions I do think EA would win since it's had a higher growth rate in the period both existed, though someone would have to check how many EA deconverts from the FTX scandal became socialists. This would be from both signal and noise factors; here's my wild guess at the most important factors:
But I think someone would actually need to do that experiment or at least gather the data
even that's overselling it, if an EA got convinced of socialism they'd just continue being EAs while also having a different theory of political organization from whatever they had before, because neither of these ideologies involve commitments that preclude the other.
This was my thoughts on it as well, along with some more general pondering of the extent to which methodological bias (on the level of selecting methods with built-in directional bias) affects our ability to understand the truth, even when we try very hard.
EA is a very good idea for cultural innovation precisely because it challenges socialism. It wasn't class struggle that enabled humanitarian advances in an increasingly technological society, but the moral evolution of citizens (usually upper-class) who gradually rejected the "systemic violence" of class society. The social improvements of the disadvantaged classes were merely concessions by the oppressor class, rather than "conquests of the oppressed" (Spartacus gained nothing by rebelling).
EA doesn't require "class consciousness"... but rather "awareness" of its own value as a moral innovation and its significance.
Isn't economic growth the main driver of improvements since the industrial revolution, rather than either better morals or class struggle?
For what it's worth though, I am not a social scientist, but when I once had a quick look at the social scientific literature on the growth of democracy specifically, I got the impression that most people writing in that literature modeled the rise of democracy as being about elite actors balancing competing interests, one of which was "don't have the working class literally stage a revolution", rather than about expanding moral circles or anything like that. I actually am fairly skeptical of social science, but I think this is at least moderate evidence that class struggle (amongst other things) was important to the growth of democracy. It was certainly important to the French Revolution, which is to some degree where modern democracy and human rights begin. (I don't think the work I was looking at was by Marxists, mostly mainstream US liberals was my impression.)
From the moment oppressed classes existed, they have always sought to free themselves from their suffering. One might wonder why they never succeeded—gradually—until the arrival of the democracies of the 19th century. It was technically easier for the oppressing classes to exercise their power with modern technology—weapons, propaganda. It was not the oppressed—developing a political strategy—but the oppressors—largely renouncing their brutality—who changed and allowed for democracy and greater social justice.
Let's say that the oppressing classes evolved ethically, "seeking the salvation of their souls," for example.
I don't think we can conclude just from the fact that the change occurred when it did that the cause was a change in the morals of the oppressors, rather than a change in how easy it was for revolts to succeed for other reasons (like more urban populations making revolution easier).
In the 19th and 20th centuries, at the height of class struggle, the justice/charity opposition was resolved with the paradigm that charity was merely an alibi masking the systemic oppression of the upper classes.
The failure of socialism—but not of liberal democracy with a social market economy—now provides an opportunity for a rationalist and non-traditional conception of charity.
This implies charity as an economic dimension of cultural change—moral evolution. In a non-political sense, this is also revolutionary and should be expressed in the form of a social movement with explicit ideological content (anarcho-pacifist, basically... but this requires an ideology of human behavior itself). This remains to be done, but a rational conception of charity as a driver of social change is already a great step forward.
It is helpful to distinguish between each set of ideas in theory and in practice. I don’t think EA and socialism claim a lot of common territory; the former is a set of individualist ideas on how wealthy people should donate their money, while the latter operates much more in the political and economic spheres. While I wouldn’t encourage someone to try and come up with a totalising socialist theory of EA as you’ve tried, I also wouldn’t discourage EAs from being curious about socialist and anti-capitalist ideas.
EA is increasingly moving toward policy and advocacy, but I don’t regularly see conflicts here. In fact, a lot of global health policy feels very internationalist in a way that socialists would encourage; and animal welfare and GCRs are both essentially identifying the failures of market-based systems to account for large negative externalities, and using statist or social means to oppose that economic power.
The remaining fundamental difference, for now, is the wealthy donors on the EA side, which seems to have large downstream effects on the ways EAs tend to think about and approach problems (“the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house” etc.). But I think it would be possible for most of EA to be funded by governments raising higher taxes, or by a larger number of smaller, distributed donations; where this happens in EA today, I see those organisations start to think more optimistically about state and social power.
(Also, the comments on your post are unusually good, and I’d encourage people to go read more there. There’s a good reply from @Bob Jacobs, who has some good critiques of EA-in-practice that I agree with)
Isn't this just obviously, trivially, literally false? On a literal level you can, in fact, just use carpenter's tools like saws and hammers to destroy houses. On a figurative level, religion, state violence, written language, legislation and ships were used to enforce chattel slavery, and the exact same tools were used by abolitionists to combat chattel slavery in Europe and the US.
This is the same pattern we see in pretty much every successful attempt to dismantle oppression throughout history. The most successful wins of feminism wins came from co-opting sources of patriarchal power, not from women going their own way or imaginative new paradigms. Gay rights came from rhetorical activism, public acceptance, court battles and patient legislation; they did not primarily flow from novel innovations in queer theory. Animal rights and welfare improvement will probably come from wins in legislation, public opinion, and technology, not the invention of truly novel cultural paradigms.
Indeed I struggle to think of examples where genuinely novel paradigms were used to dismantle oppression, perhaps Gandhi's Satyagraha and Non-Violent Resistance is a decent example, but a) much of it is still embedded in the existing paradigms and b) one example does not a trend make.
Communist revolution? American independence?
In concrete, practical terms, how do you envision "most of EA" being funded by governments? At least in the US context, this is very hard for me to imagine, as it runs counter to a lot of my understanding of the political economy of taxation and government spending.
I’m gonna bite because I assume you have some retort in mind, I’m curious to hear what you mean. I just meant in my ideal world, governments would levy higher taxes on individuals and corporations, and disburse the money through state-owned programmes (for things like PEPFAR, which are well-understood and benefit from huge scale and steady funding), or state-owned grantmakers (much how like USAID operated).
(I should warn you—my ideal world assumes the political will to do this. I don’t think we live in my ideal world right now.)
This is a nicely written piece of personal reflection that gives me a good impression of the author as a human being, but I don't think it actually provides much evidence for the evaluations of social science or evolutionary psychology or EA that it is putting forward.
As someone who considers myself both an EA and a socialist (by the normal definition), I am confused by this post :D.
Socialists believe in things like social safety nets, universal health care, equal opportunity education, respect for minorities - essentially, they believe that all humans deserve respect and the chance of a healthy, happy life, regardless of their circumstances of birth.
I think most EA's believe something similar.
Furthermore, if adopting what you describe as socialist thinking were the best (most effective) way to bring about change, EA's would support that.
But I don't think you've described socialist thinking, but rather Marxist philosophy.
And so, what you have described is not an attempt to turn EA's into socialists, but rather an attempt to turn them into Marxists.
The problem with Marxism, as perfectly captured by Bertrand Russell, is that it is a very negative, hate-filled philosophy. It is a bit like MAGA - it is defined by who it hates (the Bourgoisie), it is focused on cutting them down.
EA, on the other hand, is driven by love. It is about helping people, helping animals, helping avoid existential risks. EA's do not focus on "who are the people we want to hurt?" as Marxists do, but rather on who can we help, and how best can we help them.
In my experience, most socialists (as distinct from Marxists) have a similar philosophy.
"Socialist" is one of those words with a wide and disputed range of meaning. E.g., most members of the Democratic party in the US would endorse "social safety nets, universal health care, equal opportunity education, respect for minorities" but would not self-identify as socialist. They wouldn't limit that label to Marxism, but most would be generally thinking of a fairly strident anti-capitalist stance. Everything you mentioned is not inconsistent with capitalism with more regulations, taxes, and redistribution.
I upvoted your comment; the linked post would be improved by including an explanation of what OP means by socialism.
Many mainstream European politicians would though, whilst happily coexisting with capitalism. Treatment of "socialism" as an extremist concept which even people whose life mission is to expand social safety nets shy away from is US-exceptionalism; in the rest of the world it's a label embraced by a broad enough spectrum to include both Tony Blair and Pol Pot. So it's certainly of value to narrow that definition down a bit. :)
The presentation of socialism here is so straw as to cause me to doubt the whole story. I don’t know what brand/school of leftism is vulnerable to the particular critiques you laid out, but I’ve never seen it. These look like things libs say to one another to reassure themselves that poverty is fine actually and war is good, not like things that I’d expect to deradicalize someone who’d spent >20 hours in touch with primary sources on the topic.
It seems like the real story here is that you have very high openness, were swayed by Very Bad socialist arguments, and have now been swayed by some of the worst anti-left arguments on EA twitter.
This is importantly different from having had a profound realization about the inadequacies of Marx.
I think many "apostasy" stories (someone who had the atheist personality-type but grew up in a religious culture, people converting from left to right or back) have this character, and tend to be very popular with the destination audience and unpopular with the source audience. On the one hand, this is unsurprising--both on the levels of tribal affiliation and intellectual dynamics. (If people who use the EA tools come to the EA conclusions, then of course attempts to build alternative conclusions with the EA tools will fail.)
But it seems like--there should still be some ability to learn something, here? Either which tools are better, or whether it is reliably the case that applying analytic philosophy to Marxism causes it to evaporate, or so on. (Or that applying Marxism tools to analytic philosophy causes it to evaporate, and why we should care about that.)
Like, 'vulnerable' is an interesting word here. Jon Elster isn't a fictional character; he wrote his book 40 years ago, and people read it, and presumably some people were convinced and other people weren't. I remember reading Hayek's The Road to Serfdom, thinking "oh I wish I knew what George Orwell would have thought after reading this", and then discovering that he had read it and hadn't been convinced by it, writing this review.
And as you might expect from someone who feels a lot of resonance with Hayek--I didn't find Orwell's criticism convincing at all! But it's strange to say that means Orwell wasn't "vulnerable" to the Hayekian critique; instead I looked at his argument (that liberal tyranny is less responsible than state tyranny) and said "yikes, that's the best you could come up with?"
I don't really like how this piece politically polarizes EA by making it seem like a "non-socialist space", as if socialist and EA are mutually exclusive categories.
Global poverty, animal rights, and AI safety are causes that everyone from socialist to libertarian to conservative has a stake in, and people from all political stripes who are interested in doing the most good are Effective Altruists. You don't need a particular political theory to want humanity to not go extinct, to wish to avoid causing pain to animals, or to prioritize all humans equally and to act accordingly.
PS. To the author, this criticism is not really aimed at you. I understand that this is a personal essay about your experience and much of this may not have been your intent. My criticism is more intended for the upvoters, if the piece hadn't gotten strong positive reception then I would have just taken it for a personal essay and would not have made this comment.
To me this piece reads a bit like "I tried to convince my atheist friends to become vegan - it backfired completely, as I was previously laboring under the delusion that animals have souls" - this is definitely a reasonable personal experience to write about, but if a bunch of atheists started upvoting it and sharing it on twitter as a dunk on vegans I wouldn't like that very much, and I think I would dislike this regardless of whether I was a nonvegan atheist, a vegan christian, a nonvegan christian, or a vegan atheist.