Collective Action: working in unethical industries part 2
by Sebastian Farquhar on July 29th, 2012
In my last article I looked at how it sometimes the best option is to take a high-earning job, even in an industry one thinks is harmful, in order to donate more to charity. There were a lot of caveats. The job has to earn more than you could have made otherwise to make up for the marginal harm you do by taking it. But for a competitive job market in a mainstream job, that marginal harm is often much smaller than the total harm caused by the job.
At this point, one might raise a second objection – this is a classic collective action problem in which the ‘best option’ for an individual is much worse than the result of longer term co-ordination. The Prisoner’s Dilemma and The Tragedy of the Commons are classic examples.
Here’s how that might go. Let’s consider the pool of young effective altruist (EA) graduates entering the job market and considering professional philanthropy. Suppose that their highest earning job opportunity is in some industry which they all agree is harmful. Each young graduate apparently believes:
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If I enter the harmful industry, the harm I cause (due to the reasoning about replaceability in the previous post) will be much smaller (1) than the good I can do through my philanthropy
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The industry is harmful, so it would be better if all of us didn’t work in the industry
Since each young graduate believes (1), they all choose to take the job in the harmful industry and pursue professional philanthropy. But each young graduate also believes that this outcome – where they all work in the harmful industry – is not the ideal outcome. By thinking about how to individually make the most difference, we seem to have ended up in a situation that everyone agrees is not best! This problem extends beyond professional philanthropy – it could apply to all sorts of reasoning we do at 80,000 Hours. What has gone wrong?
I think this story is only convincing because we treat all the young graduates as making a simultaneous decision about whether to enter the harmful industry. In effect, we’re ignoring the possibility for communication between the EA job seekers.
In reality, what would happen? Each young EA would take account of how many other EAs had entered or were planning to enter the industry already. Over a period of years, as more and more EAs become professional philanthropists, it would become less and less good to enter the industry. This is because as the proportion of EAs in the industry increases, the average amount donated by each person in the industry would rise, so each new EA would make less difference. Moreover, the easy opportunities to make the industry less harmful would be taken by other EAs, so the harm done by entering the industry would get larger and larger. Eventually, it would no longer be best to pursue professional philanthropy in that industry. If each EA does their job, then over time we’ll move towards having just the right proportion of EAs working in the harmful industry.
This process could be accelerated by coordination mechanisms like the 80,000 Hours network. 80,000 Hours can do the work of each individual EA by keeping track of how many people are going into the harmful industries.
So, the truth in the objection is that you need to pay attention to what other EAs are doing. But it doesn’t mean that we should always avoid working in harmful industries, or thinking in general about how to individually make the most difference.
See the next post here
(1) Note that we’re not saying the harm done is ‘negligible’ or ‘zero’. We can also construct puzzle cases were each individual apparently makes no difference, but it adds up to a really bad outcome if everyone does the same thing. Shelly Kagan explored these kinds of cases in “Do I Make a Difference?” Philosophy and Public Affairs 39 (2):105-141 (2011).
Comments
Great piece! Two questions:
“Over a period of years, as more and more EAs become professional philanthropists, it would become less and less good to enter the industry. This is because as the proportion of EAs in the industry increases, the average amount donated by each person in the industry would rise, so each new EA would make less difference.”
Why is the average amount donated by each person in some industry a relevant metric? The last EA to enter an industry makes precisely as much difference as the first, assuming they give equal amounts to equally effective causes with constant marginal returns.
“Moreover, the easy opportunities to make the industry less harmful would be taken by other EAs, so the harm done by entering the industry would get larger and larger.”
Once the opportunities to make the industry less harmful have been taken, surely by that very assumption the harm done by entering the industry is now smaller, rather than larger, than before?
Hi Mike! There’s a little shortcut going on with the “average amount donated”. If you’re replacing someone, then you care about the expected donation of the person you replace. If the average donated goes up, then the expected donation replaced is higher, so the difference you make is smaller.
You’re right that, as the easy steps are taken, merely participating in the industry starts to carry less harm. But there are also fewer opportunities to improve the whole system by participating in it. It depends on your mindset - are you looking for a job where you won’t hurt anyone? Or are you looking for an opportunity to shake things up for the better?
(1) Thanks for explaining! I think it’s important to spell out replaceability arguments in articles on this site, or at least to reference the term at the relevant point. Thinking within that model is second nature presumably only for those working directly on this stuff.
(2) That said, I still think there’s a problem with the argument. Let’s suppose we eventually get to some EA-utopia in which a majority of, say, Goldman applicants are aspiring EAs. Suppose you are considering working at The Goldman Sachs yourself. For simplicity, assume GS applicants are either EAs, and will give away significant sums to effective organisations, or non-EAs, who, if they give at all, will give much less to less effective organisations. (This seems a very plausible assumption.) Let’s say that 50% of entry-level GS applicants are EAs. If you successfully apply, there is a 50% chance you will replace an EA. Would the “difference you make” in that case be near-zero? No! Because the person you replace, being an EA, will most likely go to work at Morgan Stanley, and, indeed, will still be an EA. Moreover, as you trace the downwards chain, the probability that you eventually replace a non-EA approaches one. Thus, the expected net increase in all donations as a result of your getting that job is pretty close to the amount you yourself will donate. Right?
(3) So just to be clear, are you saying that there being “fewer opportunities to improve the whole system by participating in it” entails that the harm done by such participation gets “larger and larger”? If so, I’m afraid I still don’t quite understand!
(4) (FWIW, I think that “fixing” the banking industry is not going to be done by banks. This is because such fixing meas lower profits, and even if EAs captured the senior management of banks they would be chucked out by boards seeking to protect shareholder value. Lawmakers and regulators are the ones who will do the shaking up, if any. When they do, it could have quite a profound impact on wages: see the two minutes of this video starting at 49:40, and page 44 of , which is the presentation I did with Jon Moynihan earlier this year.)
Hey Mike, on the second point in your first post, I was thinking of a model in which you believe that some harm-producing industry produces two types of harm (i) avoidable (ii) unavoidable. If someone non-ethically motivated enters the industry, they make a negative difference because they contribute to these two types of harm (to the extent that they’re not replaceable). If an EA enters the industry, however, then they can reduce the avoidable harms. If the EA would have been replaced by a non-ethically motivated person, then the EA makes a positive difference. As the fraction of EAs in the industry increases, then the probability of displacing a non-ethically motivated person decreases, so it becomes harder and harder to make a positive difference insofar as your work in that industry goes. So, the expected benefit of entering the industry as an EA goes down.
I was only thinking of the industry considered in isolation. You’re right that you’d really want to think about what the people you displace go on and do outside the industry as well.
I’m unsure about the replace-ability of these jobs.. As a entry-level member of the finance industry, I don’t think the number of jobs is “set.” It seems to me like it is determined by how many interested applicants the company is interested in also! Do you have any reasoning behind this claim?
I would also say that if you really want to make the big money in this industry (as seems to be the EA goal), it involves ingenuity and leadership to get to those roles. Many people leave IB or S&T, or stagnate, and never truly bring in the money more than other careers. Point being, if we can assume you’re talented and driven enough to do well enough to excel, you will in a sense “expand” the industry, a negative effect that doesn’t seem accounted for.
But a great post! Great thoughts.
Hey Joe, we’ll be writing more about this soon!
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