A final defense: why spend money helping out people in other countries? A nation’s obligation is to its own! The people saved by foreign aid aren’t Americans, so why should we bother to help them?
I feel like the intellectual right takes the position that taxes are to solve public goods problems—roads, education, homelessness—not charity. I mostly agree with them here. Why? Anyone can donate their own money to charity. When you force people to donate to a charity of your choice, well maybe they would rather have had the extra fourteen dollars than save someone from HIV. This means you’re imposing a negative externality on them, and when you impose negative externalities, you should expect resistance. It can definitely be cheaper to quell said resistance than lower taxes, but hurting others because it makes you better off and you can is antithetical to ‘society’.
When it comes to foreign aid, the only consistent stance to have is: charity work, not government work.
Imagine we could spend .5% of the budget annually to stop the Nazi holocaust every decade or so.
It seems obvious the government shouldn’t do that, unless the Nazis are going to sink our ships or declare war on our economic allies. Usually this is the case, which is why the government does prevent holocausts. But not in places like Rwanda.
Disease does not respect borders—epidemics have a way of making it to the U.S.
The USA has ~30k new HIV infections per year. Even if we assume all of those come from sex tourism in HIV-ridden countries, that’s still ~$10bn in treatment costs. Does $6bn in PEPFAR decrease American HIV infections enough to offset the cost?
I know many (most? the vast majority?) LessWrongers care about strangers enough that they disprefer the extra $14. But not everyone has the same utility function, so relegate these non-public-goods problems to charity.
I feel like the intellectual right takes the position that taxes are to solve public goods problems—roads, education, homelessness—not charity. I mostly agree with them here. Why? Anyone can donate their own money to charity.
But everyone in a group of people can reasonably have the preference “everyone donates to charity > no one donates to charity > only I donate to charity”, if each individual values “money to charity” more than they value money held by other people in the group. If so, agreeing to put taxes towards charity could be preferred by everyone. So in some situations, it can be very similar to public goods. See moral public goods for a longer explanation & discussion.
(Of course, among 300 million people, not everyone will agree. But the same is true for normal public goods — not everyone will benefit enough from them to make it worth their taxes.)
This means that you actually have to engage with the details of what the public thinks about various types of charity, to see if it’s more of a “public goods” type situation or if people would prefer to not give any money to charity. The case of foreign aid is kind of confusing. Based on my memory, and also what GPT-5 says:
Most Americans think the US should reduce spending on foreign aid
But they also vastly overestimate foreign aid spending, believing it’s like 20%+ of the budget
If asked for specific numbers on how much foreign aid the US should spend, they say numbers in between the true foreign aid (~1%) and their current impression of what foreign aid is
GPT-5 did also cite one study where Americans were informed that the US only spends like ~1% and then asked if they should spend more or less — and then majority think the US should spend a similar amount or more rather than reduce spending on foreign aid. (34 reduce / 37 same / 28 increase.) [1]
So overall I think it’s very reasonable for the US to spend money on foreign aid, and very reasonable for people to vote on candidates based on whether they match their own position on how much foreign aid there should be.
How are you deciding what qualifies as a “public good”?
Why not have each person deciding whether they value roads enough to subscribe to a road company, or whether they value an educated public enough to contribute to that?
That sort of thing sounded good to me in my teens, but then I realized that the practical, real world result would be no roads. Actually I think it started with doubts about the the sheer number of wearying decisions one would have to make to live that way… and then kind of clarified into the idea that, in fact, what with the coordination issues and free riding and all, there would in fact be no roads.
Eventually I decided I like roads enough to “hurt” a few others to get them. But there’s no fundamental difference that makes roads a “public good” and any other desire anybody might happen to have not a “public good”.
It seems obvious the government shouldn’t do that, unless the Nazis are going to sink our ships or declare war on our economic allies.
But wait, now you’re assuming that everybody cares about economic allies. What if somebody doesn’t feel they get value out of foreign trade? Why should they pay? Similarly, if you own a ship and the Nazis might sink it, then why aren’t you paying to protect it, rather than demanding that everybody pay? How is protecting your ship a public good?
And if you do want to put shipping and foreign trade in some special “public good” category, what about the foreign trade value that came out of the goodwill PEPFAR and other USAID programs were creating? Or for that matter the foreign trade value of just generally boosting people’s economic welfare worldwide? You can’t trade with people who have nothing and produce nothing. There was a lot US economic self-interest motivating many of the things USAID was doing. For that matter, it was also a source of intelligence that was sometimes used to stop ship-sinky sorts of activities, as well as, again, a source of goodwill that made those activities less attractive to a bunch of potential ship-sinkers. Seeing that stuff as pure charity is deeply naive.
Some goods can have freeriders, and some cannot. To prevent freeriders on the roads, you need some form of policing. A toll booth or a military could work. While it’s possible to form different governments for different goods, this can lead to fighting between the police forces. Eventually one wins, gains a monopoly on power, and becomes the “legitimate” government.
As to...
Why not have each person deciding whether they value roads enough to subscribe to a road [tax], or whether they value an educated public enough to contribute to that?
It’s because of freeriders. This is why we have someone else decide how much the roads or public education are helping them. Maybe by putting a tax on gasoline or land around a school. I think if they overestimate how much value you’re getting out of the roads or schools, you should complain and ask them to change the tax code. For most areas, you’ll get more value than you paid in taxes, so you only have to spend mental energy when it becomes apparent that you’re not.
What if somebody doesn’t feel they get value out of foreign trade? Why should they pay? Similarly, if you own a ship and the Nazis might sink it, then why aren’t you paying to protect it, rather than demanding that everybody pay?
They shouldn’t. This can be solved directly by having tariffs (and for thousands of years, was what was done). This feels obvious, and my guess is there’s some woke mind virus at work, something like, “taxes are a fungible pool of money that everyone gets an equal say in its distribution.” If you don’t already believe that, and you’re trying to be the first person to collect taxes, you’ll collect them for a purpose, and refund any extra money, not find a new purpose for it.
what about the foreign trade value that came out of the goodwill PEPFAR and other USAID programs were creating?
Which is it? Are these countries very poor, where PEPFAR would be a huge percent of their GDP, or are they so rich that the goodwill generated exceeds the charity? Or, is it that they virtue signal to other, richer countries that America is a benevolent dictator, and it’s okay to keep the dollar hegemony? I think that is actually a really good reason to have USAID programs—it slows down other nations’ urgency to compete—but I also believe America’s hegemony has <10 years left. I think it’s still good to commit to goodwill, so that the next powers to be are more likely to be kind in return. That is the public good we’re funding, nothing else. Is it worth $20–40bn/year? Probably.
When it comes to foreign aid, the only consistent stance to have is: charity work, not government work.
Seeing that stuff as pure charity is deeply naive.
Deeply naive with a helping of arrogance. Why would you believe I didn’t consider goodwill, and then just decided it wasn’t worth it to add another few paragraphs going several rebuttals deeper? You’ll also find that I tend to respond to people with the same style of argumentation they employ. Such as, if you flippantly call something inconsistent, I’ll flippantly call it consistent.
Are these countries very poor, where PEPFAR would be a huge percent of their GDP,
They can be poor at the moment, and you can hope they will eventually be rich, so you can trade with them. Maybe you try to make that happen. It’s uncertain, yes, and in some cases not very likely at all. But it can still be one of your reasons.
or are they so rich that the goodwill generated exceeds the charity?
It’s unlikely you’ll make a net profit off them right now. You can; occasionally there’s some really valuable deal. In expectation it’s probably a financial loss in the near term. But it’s not a dead loss in expectation.
And you might cut down on the number other governments that decide not to let you run a road across a corner of their territory or whatever. And on the number of random not-necessarily-government people harassing shipping. People who aren’t profitable trading partners, or even in the picture on a particular aid decision, can still seriously obstruct things that are profitable.
Or, is it that they virtue signal to other, richer countries that America is a benevolent dictator, and it’s okay to keep the dollar hegemony?
Sure, that’s one big reason. Did you think I’d say it wasn’t?
I mean, I’m not saying USAID was anywhere near the core of it, but that hegemony didn’t happen for no reason to begin with. It helps to be big, it helps to be everywhere, it helps to be ready to deal, it helps to be at least relatively trustworthy about keeping bargains, and it helps to have not been as devastated as everybody else in a huge war at a critical time. But it also truly helps to be seen as the “good guy”.
The hope you mention for reciprocity from future hegemons is also a possible reason, although I don’t know that the people actually making the decisions are thinking in those terms, and I’m not sure that memories are that long.
You can do this stuff because you think your people want to help the unfortunate overseas[1] , and because you want to cut down on the amount of HIV or whatever sloshing around the planet[2], and because it plays well with people in other rich countries, and because it makes poor countries less likely to get in your way just because they can, and because it may build markets, and because it’s cover for both spies and not-spies-who-are-still-good-information-sources, and because it tends to mean you get consulted (or at least hear about it) when people are making decisions about this or that region, and for whatever other reasons, and no single one of them has to carry the entire burden.
You’d like to eradicate it domestically, but you can’t actually do that without eradicating it globally. Sure, it’s a long-term project, but it never happens if you don’t work on it.
I feel like the intellectual right takes the position that taxes are to solve public goods problems—roads, education, homelessness—not charity. I mostly agree with them here. Why? Anyone can donate their own money to charity. When you force people to donate to a charity of your choice, well maybe they would rather have had the extra fourteen dollars than save someone from HIV. This means you’re imposing a negative externality on them, and when you impose negative externalities, you should expect resistance. It can definitely be cheaper to quell said resistance than lower taxes, but hurting others because it makes you better off and you can is antithetical to ‘society’.
When it comes to foreign aid, the only consistent stance to have is: charity work, not government work.
It seems obvious the government shouldn’t do that, unless the Nazis are going to sink our ships or declare war on our economic allies. Usually this is the case, which is why the government does prevent holocausts. But not in places like Rwanda.
The USA has ~30k new HIV infections per year. Even if we assume all of those come from sex tourism in HIV-ridden countries, that’s still ~$10bn in treatment costs. Does $6bn in PEPFAR decrease American HIV infections enough to offset the cost?
I know many (most? the vast majority?) LessWrongers care about strangers enough that they disprefer the extra $14. But not everyone has the same utility function, so relegate these non-public-goods problems to charity.
But everyone in a group of people can reasonably have the preference “everyone donates to charity > no one donates to charity > only I donate to charity”, if each individual values “money to charity” more than they value money held by other people in the group. If so, agreeing to put taxes towards charity could be preferred by everyone. So in some situations, it can be very similar to public goods. See moral public goods for a longer explanation & discussion.
(Of course, among 300 million people, not everyone will agree. But the same is true for normal public goods — not everyone will benefit enough from them to make it worth their taxes.)
This means that you actually have to engage with the details of what the public thinks about various types of charity, to see if it’s more of a “public goods” type situation or if people would prefer to not give any money to charity. The case of foreign aid is kind of confusing. Based on my memory, and also what GPT-5 says:
Most Americans think the US should reduce spending on foreign aid
But they also vastly overestimate foreign aid spending, believing it’s like 20%+ of the budget
If asked for specific numbers on how much foreign aid the US should spend, they say numbers in between the true foreign aid (~1%) and their current impression of what foreign aid is
GPT-5 did also cite one study where Americans were informed that the US only spends like ~1% and then asked if they should spend more or less — and then majority think the US should spend a similar amount or more rather than reduce spending on foreign aid. (34 reduce / 37 same / 28 increase.) [1]
So overall I think it’s very reasonable for the US to spend money on foreign aid, and very reasonable for people to vote on candidates based on whether they match their own position on how much foreign aid there should be.
I did check that the question and the numbers checked out, but I didn’t otherwise vet that the study was reasonable.
How are you deciding what qualifies as a “public good”?
Why not have each person deciding whether they value roads enough to subscribe to a road company, or whether they value an educated public enough to contribute to that?
That sort of thing sounded good to me in my teens, but then I realized that the practical, real world result would be no roads. Actually I think it started with doubts about the the sheer number of wearying decisions one would have to make to live that way… and then kind of clarified into the idea that, in fact, what with the coordination issues and free riding and all, there would in fact be no roads.
Eventually I decided I like roads enough to “hurt” a few others to get them. But there’s no fundamental difference that makes roads a “public good” and any other desire anybody might happen to have not a “public good”.
But wait, now you’re assuming that everybody cares about economic allies. What if somebody doesn’t feel they get value out of foreign trade? Why should they pay? Similarly, if you own a ship and the Nazis might sink it, then why aren’t you paying to protect it, rather than demanding that everybody pay? How is protecting your ship a public good?
And if you do want to put shipping and foreign trade in some special “public good” category, what about the foreign trade value that came out of the goodwill PEPFAR and other USAID programs were creating? Or for that matter the foreign trade value of just generally boosting people’s economic welfare worldwide? You can’t trade with people who have nothing and produce nothing. There was a lot US economic self-interest motivating many of the things USAID was doing. For that matter, it was also a source of intelligence that was sometimes used to stop ship-sinky sorts of activities, as well as, again, a source of goodwill that made those activities less attractive to a bunch of potential ship-sinkers. Seeing that stuff as pure charity is deeply naive.
Some goods can have freeriders, and some cannot. To prevent freeriders on the roads, you need some form of policing. A toll booth or a military could work. While it’s possible to form different governments for different goods, this can lead to fighting between the police forces. Eventually one wins, gains a monopoly on power, and becomes the “legitimate” government.
As to...
It’s because of freeriders. This is why we have someone else decide how much the roads or public education are helping them. Maybe by putting a tax on gasoline or land around a school. I think if they overestimate how much value you’re getting out of the roads or schools, you should complain and ask them to change the tax code. For most areas, you’ll get more value than you paid in taxes, so you only have to spend mental energy when it becomes apparent that you’re not.
They shouldn’t. This can be solved directly by having tariffs (and for thousands of years, was what was done). This feels obvious, and my guess is there’s some woke mind virus at work, something like, “taxes are a fungible pool of money that everyone gets an equal say in its distribution.” If you don’t already believe that, and you’re trying to be the first person to collect taxes, you’ll collect them for a purpose, and refund any extra money, not find a new purpose for it.
Which is it? Are these countries very poor, where PEPFAR would be a huge percent of their GDP, or are they so rich that the goodwill generated exceeds the charity? Or, is it that they virtue signal to other, richer countries that America is a benevolent dictator, and it’s okay to keep the dollar hegemony? I think that is actually a really good reason to have USAID programs—it slows down other nations’ urgency to compete—but I also believe America’s hegemony has <10 years left. I think it’s still good to commit to goodwill, so that the next powers to be are more likely to be kind in return. That is the public good we’re funding, nothing else. Is it worth $20–40bn/year? Probably.
Deeply naive with a helping of arrogance. Why would you believe I didn’t consider goodwill, and then just decided it wasn’t worth it to add another few paragraphs going several rebuttals deeper? You’ll also find that I tend to respond to people with the same style of argumentation they employ. Such as, if you flippantly call something inconsistent, I’ll flippantly call it consistent.
They can be poor at the moment, and you can hope they will eventually be rich, so you can trade with them. Maybe you try to make that happen. It’s uncertain, yes, and in some cases not very likely at all. But it can still be one of your reasons.
It’s unlikely you’ll make a net profit off them right now. You can; occasionally there’s some really valuable deal. In expectation it’s probably a financial loss in the near term. But it’s not a dead loss in expectation.
And you might cut down on the number other governments that decide not to let you run a road across a corner of their territory or whatever. And on the number of random not-necessarily-government people harassing shipping. People who aren’t profitable trading partners, or even in the picture on a particular aid decision, can still seriously obstruct things that are profitable.
Sure, that’s one big reason. Did you think I’d say it wasn’t?
I mean, I’m not saying USAID was anywhere near the core of it, but that hegemony didn’t happen for no reason to begin with. It helps to be big, it helps to be everywhere, it helps to be ready to deal, it helps to be at least relatively trustworthy about keeping bargains, and it helps to have not been as devastated as everybody else in a huge war at a critical time. But it also truly helps to be seen as the “good guy”.
The hope you mention for reciprocity from future hegemons is also a possible reason, although I don’t know that the people actually making the decisions are thinking in those terms, and I’m not sure that memories are that long.
You can do this stuff because you think your people want to help the unfortunate overseas[1] , and because you want to cut down on the amount of HIV or whatever sloshing around the planet[2], and because it plays well with people in other rich countries, and because it makes poor countries less likely to get in your way just because they can, and because it may build markets, and because it’s cover for both spies and not-spies-who-are-still-good-information-sources, and because it tends to mean you get consulted (or at least hear about it) when people are making decisions about this or that region, and for whatever other reasons, and no single one of them has to carry the entire burden.
Which a large majority of them do, by the way.
You’d like to eradicate it domestically, but you can’t actually do that without eradicating it globally. Sure, it’s a long-term project, but it never happens if you don’t work on it.