Donating shoes/bicycles/etc. to developing nations is a bad idea, because it disrupts and destroys the local economy shoe-production. There simply isn’t enough regional demand, factoring in the large donations, to develop the proper economics of scale. I have no literature on this, but a well-thought out philantropist friend has noted this concept to me many times.
That is an argument I often hear or read, but I never see a good model showing that it would indeed be a consistent argument. Suppose you have an economy that gets all its shoes for free. Why shouldn’t people just be happy about that and produce something else?
The brain-drain argument is more complicated, also empirically, but concerning the “rebuild the country” argument: since this post is discussing ethics, I assume the question in this context would be: Why would an individual who is born in Syria be ethically obligated to stay there, while you are not ethically obligated to do everything to rebuild Syria?
Concerning climate goals: While I assume that nobody in Europe would consider starting a war against the US if the US government announces an NDC lacking ambition, I would be interesting which cases of abusing “the commons” actually led to “moral indignation, then war”.
Finally, if you invest in institution-building in your local community, the same things can happen. Other people around you don’t develop the capacity to contribute, you help people who could help themselves, and people can abuse the commons. If you can “reap the benefits of local status”, you could also reap the benefits of global status.
So I think all of your points may be worthwhile, but they seem somewhat incomplete.
I will try to move from the specific, to the general:
Specific:
Shoes: The problem is, as my friend explained to three things:
That shoes/bicylces/engines/etc. is not a consistently donated good across time. Interest waxes and wanes. That means an unsteady supply of “free goods”.
It also doesn’t allow the country to progress in up-skilling manufacturing, as many Asian countries have done. I forget the model name, but the one where they move from raw materials, to manufacturing, to low-level electronics, etc. - its hard to simply move from rural farmer to semiconductor engineering—for various reasons ranging from income to sustain education, etc.
It destroys what capacity already existed. If people and businesses invest in capacity for building bicycles, then get hit with a 3-year surge of bicycles (than then disappear) - you have to rebuild and reacquire the expertise.
Brain-drain: From an ethical standpoint, I think the paradigm you are approaching from is wrong. This is not about normative duties, but about pragmatism.
It is easier for a native to enter local government.
It is difficult and time consuming to integrate new peoples into countries—for both host and immigrant.
It is GREAT for me that engineers, doctors and judges are coming to my country. It is not so great for the originator country. It is not about “sending somebody back to deal with it”—but about investigating the second-order effects on millions of people, when deciding to help thousands of people. Put in another way: If we presume that only the educated elite gets to leave, is it a good idea “to let them in” from a pure utilitarian perspective, cosnidering their country-men? Its not about individual rights, because then we would have to discuss a very deep topic of, to what degree people have a right to the land that their forefathers lived on, which I think is not the purpose of my argument here.
Climate:
Many wars have been worsened, started or instigated by access to freshwater resources. The united nations keeps a list of “water conflicts”—if i’m not mistaken—but googling the term will lead to plenty of examples.
Status:
There is no such thing as global status for, say, donating $5000 to a community shelter. Nobody will care, if you decide to donate to another country, county or even city. You do have a point on “letting locals freeload”—but at least you will have proportionally larger personal benefits, despite the freeloaders, than from donating to a community shelter the town over.
General:
Still, I get that each point is not complete or has individual shortcomings—I am only trying to demonstrate a general point. The general point is this:
“What if supporting some altruistic purpose simply lets other people ignore the issue and pocket the change, leaving net gain at 0?” (i.e. ambitious climate plans letting others relax).
“What if supporting some altruistic purpose inadvertently worsened everything”
And my general solution is:
“Keep things simple and local, as to avoid interacting with things you have no insight into, and to minimize unruly second-order global effects”.
That is an argument I often hear or read, but I never see a good model showing that it would indeed be a consistent argument. Suppose you have an economy that gets all its shoes for free. Why shouldn’t people just be happy about that and produce something else?
The brain-drain argument is more complicated, also empirically, but concerning the “rebuild the country” argument: since this post is discussing ethics, I assume the question in this context would be: Why would an individual who is born in Syria be ethically obligated to stay there, while you are not ethically obligated to do everything to rebuild Syria?
Concerning climate goals: While I assume that nobody in Europe would consider starting a war against the US if the US government announces an NDC lacking ambition, I would be interesting which cases of abusing “the commons” actually led to “moral indignation, then war”.
Finally, if you invest in institution-building in your local community, the same things can happen. Other people around you don’t develop the capacity to contribute, you help people who could help themselves, and people can abuse the commons. If you can “reap the benefits of local status”, you could also reap the benefits of global status.
So I think all of your points may be worthwhile, but they seem somewhat incomplete.
I will try to move from the specific, to the general:
Specific:
Shoes: The problem is, as my friend explained to three things:
That shoes/bicylces/engines/etc. is not a consistently donated good across time. Interest waxes and wanes. That means an unsteady supply of “free goods”.
It also doesn’t allow the country to progress in up-skilling manufacturing, as many Asian countries have done. I forget the model name, but the one where they move from raw materials, to manufacturing, to low-level electronics, etc. - its hard to simply move from rural farmer to semiconductor engineering—for various reasons ranging from income to sustain education, etc.
It destroys what capacity already existed. If people and businesses invest in capacity for building bicycles, then get hit with a 3-year surge of bicycles (than then disappear) - you have to rebuild and reacquire the expertise.
Brain-drain: From an ethical standpoint, I think the paradigm you are approaching from is wrong. This is not about normative duties, but about pragmatism.
It is easier for a native to enter local government.
It is difficult and time consuming to integrate new peoples into countries—for both host and immigrant.
It is GREAT for me that engineers, doctors and judges are coming to my country. It is not so great for the originator country. It is not about “sending somebody back to deal with it”—but about investigating the second-order effects on millions of people, when deciding to help thousands of people. Put in another way: If we presume that only the educated elite gets to leave, is it a good idea “to let them in” from a pure utilitarian perspective, cosnidering their country-men? Its not about individual rights, because then we would have to discuss a very deep topic of, to what degree people have a right to the land that their forefathers lived on, which I think is not the purpose of my argument here.
Climate:
Many wars have been worsened, started or instigated by access to freshwater resources. The united nations keeps a list of “water conflicts”—if i’m not mistaken—but googling the term will lead to plenty of examples.
Status:
There is no such thing as global status for, say, donating $5000 to a community shelter. Nobody will care, if you decide to donate to another country, county or even city. You do have a point on “letting locals freeload”—but at least you will have proportionally larger personal benefits, despite the freeloaders, than from donating to a community shelter the town over.
General:
Still, I get that each point is not complete or has individual shortcomings—I am only trying to demonstrate a general point. The general point is this:
“What if supporting some altruistic purpose simply lets other people ignore the issue and pocket the change, leaving net gain at 0?” (i.e. ambitious climate plans letting others relax).
“What if supporting some altruistic purpose inadvertently worsened everything”
And my general solution is:
“Keep things simple and local, as to avoid interacting with things you have no insight into, and to minimize unruly second-order global effects”.