I may have taken too much background as common knowledge. I appreciate the “money is as real as baseball” reminder, especially as nobody recommends donating baseball to improve the lives of others. I absolutely favor the model of money as fungible favor system, and it shares some characteristics of that, but it isn’t that either. Personal favors have lasting impact on the relationship, and cannot be accounted perfectly so there’s always some residual debt (IMO, this is a feature). Money is necessarily transactional in nature. Once both sides of the exchange are complete, there is no remaining effect (except perhaps the chance of future money).
Altruism is (generally) seeking deeper value and behavioral change. This seems like a very deep contradiction, but I suspect I misunderstand altruism more than I do money.
Personal favors have lasting impact on the relationship, and cannot be accounted perfectly so there’s always some residual debt (IMO, this is a feature).
First, have you read Graeber’s Debt: The First 5000 Years? It speaks to exactly this situation and makes points similar to the ones you’re making.
Second, the real advantage of money is that it scales. Exchanging favors is great when we’re all living in tribes or small towns. But if I, as many EAs believe, think that the real problem is not that my neighbor needs a new jacket but that a person 15,000 miles away needs a bednet to protect them from malaria, it’s not at all clear how I can donate that bednet by doing favors for people.
While favors might have a lasting effect on the relationship, the problem with favors is that they require the relationship to already exist. Historically, this wasn’t a problem because people lived in small, economically isolated communities, and didn’t move. You got a set of pre-existing relationships simply by virtue of being born into that community, and you were stuck with those, whether you liked it or not. In that environment, people could keep and settle tabs, often without resorting to any sort of physical currency at all. But now, thanks to globalized trade networks and the businesses that built them, we have the ability to make use of faraway resources (like products made in China) and help people all over the globe (by donating bednets in Africa). In addition, the fact that people have the ability to move means that there needs to be a way for people to transact with others impersonally. I can’t rely on trusting my IOUs when I’m new in town.
So while I do think that gift and favor based systems have some advantages, there is no way I’d trade our modern money-based financial system for a gift economy.
I’m sort of confused about which question you’re actually asking here. This post seems to separately be boggling at a) money, b) at altruism, and c) the way the two interrelate. It seems like it’s specifically looking at the interrelation. But I don’t know enough about the intended frame for money, or intended frame for altruism, to understand what you’re interested in here.
Is there a reason you’re asking about donating to charity (using money), rather than paying for goods or services (using money?)
boggling at money, and at altruism, and at the way the two interrelate
This would not be an incorrect summary of my confusion. The difference in realm between social and fiscal motivations is fairly well-studied, including some counter-intuitive things like taking payment for transgressions causing more incidence, as you’ve removed the unquantified guilt for it. And yet, we often exhort people to donate cash rather than time or changing behaviors in other ways.
And yet, we often exhort people to donate cash rather than time or changing behaviors in other ways.
It seems like you want some sort of general answer to this, when it seems to me it depends on a ton on the details.
Sometimes, you want to feed and cloth bunch of homeless people, and you don’t really need people to change their behavior or donate time – in fact, getting them to donate time is almost net-negative because then you have to figure out how to coordinate them. Meanwhile, it’s not that hard to give out clothes and food, you just need economy of scale.
Sometimes, you’re trying to change the underlying systems that give rise to homeless people, and… well, what comes next depends radically on what you think the problem is and how to solve it. Maybe it’s some kind of collective action (requires lots of people), maybe it’s passing a new law (requires dedicated lobbyists and people to figure out which law to write), maybe it’s building better mental hospitals or free therapy, maybe it’s making it easy for them to receive mail and get showers and nice clothes so they can get a job.
Almost whatever problem you’re focusing on requires people who can dedicate lots of time to thinking about it (whether or not the solution ends up involving collective action or distributed material goods or small-but-high-leverage-interactions), rather than volunteer hobbyists thinking about it occasionally. Which basically always requires some amount of money.
It sounds like there were some particular examples you had in mind where it didn’t seem like donating money would help, but it’s hard for me to figure out what to say given the current vague wording.
Do you have some behaviors that might be offered up as examples for this?
I am now thinking that is different than talking about behaviors of the recipients of charity so it’s more about paying up for transgressions being wrapped up in the charity plea for money.
Afterthought here too. Early 1900s I think you would find more request for donating time—more volunteer work, less “professionalization” of the industry of charity. I think a few studies (no cites or titles to offer though) have suggest that shift has introduces some negative impacts in terms of output.
I may have taken too much background as common knowledge. I appreciate the “money is as real as baseball” reminder, especially as nobody recommends donating baseball to improve the lives of others. I absolutely favor the model of money as fungible favor system, and it shares some characteristics of that, but it isn’t that either. Personal favors have lasting impact on the relationship, and cannot be accounted perfectly so there’s always some residual debt (IMO, this is a feature). Money is necessarily transactional in nature. Once both sides of the exchange are complete, there is no remaining effect (except perhaps the chance of future money).
Altruism is (generally) seeking deeper value and behavioral change. This seems like a very deep contradiction, but I suspect I misunderstand altruism more than I do money.
First, have you read Graeber’s Debt: The First 5000 Years? It speaks to exactly this situation and makes points similar to the ones you’re making.
Second, the real advantage of money is that it scales. Exchanging favors is great when we’re all living in tribes or small towns. But if I, as many EAs believe, think that the real problem is not that my neighbor needs a new jacket but that a person 15,000 miles away needs a bednet to protect them from malaria, it’s not at all clear how I can donate that bednet by doing favors for people.
While favors might have a lasting effect on the relationship, the problem with favors is that they require the relationship to already exist. Historically, this wasn’t a problem because people lived in small, economically isolated communities, and didn’t move. You got a set of pre-existing relationships simply by virtue of being born into that community, and you were stuck with those, whether you liked it or not. In that environment, people could keep and settle tabs, often without resorting to any sort of physical currency at all. But now, thanks to globalized trade networks and the businesses that built them, we have the ability to make use of faraway resources (like products made in China) and help people all over the globe (by donating bednets in Africa). In addition, the fact that people have the ability to move means that there needs to be a way for people to transact with others impersonally. I can’t rely on trusting my IOUs when I’m new in town.
So while I do think that gift and favor based systems have some advantages, there is no way I’d trade our modern money-based financial system for a gift economy.
I’m sort of confused about which question you’re actually asking here. This post seems to separately be boggling at a) money, b) at altruism, and c) the way the two interrelate. It seems like it’s specifically looking at the interrelation. But I don’t know enough about the intended frame for money, or intended frame for altruism, to understand what you’re interested in here.
Is there a reason you’re asking about donating to charity (using money), rather than paying for goods or services (using money?)
This would not be an incorrect summary of my confusion. The difference in realm between social and fiscal motivations is fairly well-studied, including some counter-intuitive things like taking payment for transgressions causing more incidence, as you’ve removed the unquantified guilt for it. And yet, we often exhort people to donate cash rather than time or changing behaviors in other ways.
It seems like you want some sort of general answer to this, when it seems to me it depends on a ton on the details.
Sometimes, you want to feed and cloth bunch of homeless people, and you don’t really need people to change their behavior or donate time – in fact, getting them to donate time is almost net-negative because then you have to figure out how to coordinate them. Meanwhile, it’s not that hard to give out clothes and food, you just need economy of scale.
Sometimes, you’re trying to change the underlying systems that give rise to homeless people, and… well, what comes next depends radically on what you think the problem is and how to solve it. Maybe it’s some kind of collective action (requires lots of people), maybe it’s passing a new law (requires dedicated lobbyists and people to figure out which law to write), maybe it’s building better mental hospitals or free therapy, maybe it’s making it easy for them to receive mail and get showers and nice clothes so they can get a job.
Almost whatever problem you’re focusing on requires people who can dedicate lots of time to thinking about it (whether or not the solution ends up involving collective action or distributed material goods or small-but-high-leverage-interactions), rather than volunteer hobbyists thinking about it occasionally. Which basically always requires some amount of money.
It sounds like there were some particular examples you had in mind where it didn’t seem like donating money would help, but it’s hard for me to figure out what to say given the current vague wording.
Do you have some behaviors that might be offered up as examples for this?
I am now thinking that is different than talking about behaviors of the recipients of charity so it’s more about paying up for transgressions being wrapped up in the charity plea for money.
Afterthought here too. Early 1900s I think you would find more request for donating time—more volunteer work, less “professionalization” of the industry of charity. I think a few studies (no cites or titles to offer though) have suggest that shift has introduces some negative impacts in terms of output.