[Crossposted from social media, in the spirit of Draft Amnesty Week] After a lot of thinking, I am updating my Giving What We Can๐ธ10% donation allocation, shifting about a third of my donation portfolio to the Center for Land Economics ๐ฐ. There are several reasons why I am excited about this donation opportunity. I believe that Georgism has the potential to radically transform our economy and society. 'Land is a Big Deal', as they say. Raising public funds without deadweight costs is a big part of this. But more fundamentally, by reducing the costs of living and the role of rent-seeking, I hope that it could shift our society from scarcity and zero-sum thinking to abundance and positive-sum collaboration. Within this cause area, I believe that CLE is the most cost-effective donation opportunity. In their first year, they have achieved much more tangible benefits than I would have anticipated, and seeing this change has made me much more optimistic about the prospects for Georgist reform today than I was a year ago. They combine an incremental approach of giving legislators and tax assessors the tools necessary to improve the situation on the ground, with movement building and consistent high-quality public outreach through the Progress & Poverty Substack. And they have done this with a small but dedicated team, with only 1 funded FTE. This means that my donations, as a small, private donor, will actually constitute a few percentage points of their annual budget. It is rare to ever have the opportunity to make such a counterfactual difference. We can often have the most impactful donation opportunities in areas where we have access to idiosyncratic information that is not yet widely recognized by the wider 'donation market'. In my case, I think that the world severely under-appreciates the potential of Georgist reform generally, and the work of CLE specifically. However, such idiosyncratic information can often be connected to unusual interests, which often comes with a risk of motivated reasoning. Maybe I am subconsciously exaggerating the importance of Georgism, due to my own personal involvement in the movement. These risks are a real concern, and it is part of the reason why I split my donation portfolio. But on net, I still see the opportunity as outweighing the risks. I am posting this in the hope of others sanity-checking my reasoning above, and to inspire others to consider this extraordinary donation opportunity. We can often massively leverage the impact of our donations by also donating publicly. And this is only more true if we have information not yet widely recognized by others. To read more, check out the links below, and please feel free to reach out if you want to discuss this further!
Some resources for those curious to know more: * CLE's website, where you can also donate. * Land is a Big Deal, by Lars Doucet. Originally published as an essay series on Astral Codex Ten, and then converted into a book, I think that this provides one of the best contemporary introductions to Georgism. You can find the whole book here, or, if you prefer, in audio format on Spotify.ย * CLE's one-year impact report.ย * The Virtues of Virtue Signalling: A post I wrote some time ago about why I think we should be public about our donation decisions.ย ย
[Crossposted from social media, in the spirit of Draft Amnesty Week]
After a lot of thinking, I am updating my Giving What We Can๐ธ10% donation allocation, shifting about a third of my donation portfolio to the Center for Land Economics ๐ฐ.
There are several reasons why I am excited about this donation opportunity.
I believe that Georgism has the potential to radically transform our economy and society. 'Land is a Big Deal', as they say. Raising public funds without deadweight costs is a big part of this. But more fundamentally, by reducing the costs of living and the role of rent-seeking, I hope that it could shift our society from scarcity and zero-sum thinking to abundance and positive-sum collaboration.
Within this cause area, I believe that CLE is the most cost-effective donation opportunity. In their first year, they have achieved much more tangible benefits than I would have anticipated, and seeing this change has made me much more optimistic about the prospects for Georgist reform today than I was a year ago. They combine an incremental approach of giving legislators and tax assessors the tools necessary to improve the situation on the ground, with movement building and consistent high-quality public outreach through the Progress & Poverty Substack. And they have done this with a small but dedicated team, with only 1 funded FTE.
This means that my donations, as a small, private donor, will actually constitute a few percentage points of their annual budget. It is rare to ever have the opportunity to make such a counterfactual difference. We can often have the most impactful donation opportunities in areas where we have access to idiosyncratic information that is not yet widely recognized by the wider 'donation market'. In my case, I think that the world severely under-appreciates the potential of Georgist reform generally, and the work of CLE specifically.
However, such idiosyncratic information can often be connected to unusual interests, which often comes with a risk of motivated reasoning. Maybe I am subconsciously exaggerating the importance of Georgism, due to my own personal involvement in the movement. These risks are a real concern, and it is part of the reason why I split my donation portfolio. But on net, I still see the opportunity as outweighing the risks.
I am posting this in the hope of others sanity-checking my reasoning above, and to inspire others to consider this extraordinary donation opportunity. We can often massively leverage the impact of our donations by also donating publicly. And this is only more true if we have information not yet widely recognized by others. To read more, check out the links below, and please feel free to reach out if you want to discuss this further!
Some resources for those curious to know more:
* CLE's website, where you can also donate.
* Land is a Big Deal, by Lars Doucet. Originally published as an essay series on Astral Codex Ten, and then converted into a book, I think that this provides one of the best contemporary introductions to Georgism. You can find the whole book here, or, if you prefer, in audio format on Spotify.ย
* CLE's one-year impact report.ย
* The Virtues of Virtue Signalling: A post I wrote some time ago about why I think we should be public about our donation decisions.ย
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