If you want to do the most good, maybe you shouldn’t work for Wall Street

Suppose you are an altruistically minded person who is adamant about doing the most good you possibly can. If you are lucky enough to have a wide range of options, what career should you choose?

Two years ago, William MacAskill, President of 80,000 hours, a non-profit organisation focused on “enabling people to make a bigger difference with their career,” suggested you steer clear of charity work and aim for Wall Street. He called this approach earning to give. A couple of days ago, MacAskill has published a blog post where he admits that heavily pushing for the idea of earning to give was “a marketing strategy,” and that, although 80,000 hours did believe that “at least a large proportion of people” should become high-earners in order to donate more money, placing so much emphasis on this idea may have been mistaken. The 80,000 hours page on earning to give now reads: “This page was last updated in 2012 and no-longer fully reflects our views.” MacAskill’s current point of view is that only a “small proportion” of people should strive to earn to give.

Importantly, MacAskill’s post was followed by a further 80,000 hours blog post written by Robert Wiblin, which affirms that effective altruists are not against systemic change. For people who were concerned about effective altruists’ apparent enthusiasm for the financial sector, both pieces of writing are reassuring and welcome. Moreover, regarding the first post, my hat is off to anyone who, having publicly defended a stance, is willing to revise his views and acknowledge a change of mind (or heart)—particularly if the shift is a result of exposure to reasons and/or evidence.

That said, the reasons cited by MacAskill for the turnaround might cause surprise. Most of the reasons he mentions seem to suggest that scarcity of funds is not as big a problem for effective altruists as they previously thought it might be (e.g. “Effective Altruism organizations are generally reporting that they are more talent-constrained than money-constrained. (…) In general, important ideas seem to get funding.”). He also mentions that people who are open to pursuing a range of careers may have reason to choose a “more neglected option than earning to give,” and that, given that there are many more non-earning-to-give options that earning-to-give ones, it is unlikely that earning to give will be the best alternative for most people.

These are all good reasons to reconsider generally encouraging young people to go into the financial sector. What can be perceived as puzzling, however, is that MacAskill makes no mention of some of the most morally relevant reasons that have been offered for not opting for Wall Street.

In response to MacAskill’s article two years back, Brooke Allen pointed out that the process of making money often creates much harm, and Matt Phillips argued that having a high proportion of bankers can be dangerous for the economy. The 2008 financial crisis has painfully revealed the uglier side of Wall Street. In order to become a high-earner in the financial sector, one would most likely have to defend the interests of the rich, thereby contributing to inequality. One may be involved in many kinds of activities that harm the poor—for example, in financial speculation that can affect the price volatility of foodstuffs, thereby creating hunger. One may bet against a whole country or currency and create a financial crisis with lasting effects.

It seems to me that, if one works for Wall Street and donates a large amount of money to alleviate poverty or disease, one may fall into the illusion that one is doing overall more good than harm (when in fact this may not be so) because it is relatively easy to calculate how many lives one may be saving by donating to charity, but it is very hard to estimate the amount and extent of the harm one is producing (or the number of lives one is ruining) by working for the financial sector. Moreover, while one can feel wholly responsible for the good one does, the responsibility for the harm is shared, and thus feels less burdensome, less personal and direct. Yet Allen, who claims to have worked more than three decades on Wall Street, is certain that sometimes the harm done by earning money is well beyond the good that can be done by donating it:

Question: How much money would all the participants in the mortgage securitization industry have to give to charity to undo the harm they have caused?

Answer: More than they have ever made.

MacAskill cannot be accused of being unaware of these issues. Indeed, in his paper Replaceability, Career Choice, and Making a Difference, he mentions as an example the harm that can be done by speculating on wheat. Why, then, does he not cite harms as further reasons to choose more harmless careers? Presumably, because of his commitment to the idea of replaceability: If one does not take the Wall Street job, MacAskill argues, somebody else will. Given this fact, it is better that you (an altruistically minded person) do it than someone else. If the job is high-paying, you can donate a substantial part of what you earn (something which other candidates for the job would be unlikely to do). If the job is a very evil one (e.g., working for the Nazis), you can try to do it less well than someone else would, thereby creating less evil in the world than would otherwise be the case.

The most troublesome side of the replaceability argument is that it has no moral limit to what it can justify: from working as a drug dealer to dropping a nuclear bomb. As long as someone equally qualified as you are is willing to do the job, and you think of yourself as someone altruistically minded who will do less harm (or more good) than someone else, anything goes—no job is off limits.

MacAskill seems to think that the replaceability argument does not justify what he calls reprehensible careers (e.g., “working as a hit man, a concentration camp guard, a drug dealer or a child trafficker”). According to him, replaceability can only justify morally controversial careers, such as being a Wall Street broker. He gives two main consequential reasons to justify his claim (he also mentions non-consequential reasons, but here I will only focus on the consequential ones).

First, MacAskill thinks it unlikely that someone who is “morally sensitive” could bring herself to pursue a reprehensible career. I disagree. As Hannah Arendt argued in Eichmann in Jerusalem, evil is more often than not banal—people who think of themselves as good people can commit horrendous crimes. In fact, most individuals who cause harm to others think of themselves as “good guys.” I have little doubt that many drug dealers justify their careers exactly as MacAskill justifies a career in finance: “If I wasn’t doing this, someone else would be. Plus, I’m a good guy who is probably doing more good than others would.” Mexican cartels often give out dinners, toys, and money to people as gifts. They also provide protection to their villages, and they give work to people in need. Pablo Escobar, the most notorious drug lord in the history of Colombia, constructed houses, sports facilities, health centers, and schools, and probably thought of himself as a national hero. Yet the consequences of the drug dealing business can be devastating. In 2012, it was estimated that around 150 thousand people have been killed in the last few years in Mexico as a result of violence related to drug cartels. To the murders one should add dozens of thousands of kidnaps, extortion, corruption, economic costs (e.g., loss of tourism), damage to the social fabric, etc.

The second consequential reason MacAskill gives for why replaceability supposedly does not justify reprehensible careers is that pursuing such jobs would impair the effective altruist’s “ability to influence others to also pursue philanthropy as a vocation” and would risk “sullying” effective altruism. The implicit idea seems to be that it is important for effective altruists to dedicate themselves to careers that have good reputations in order to be an example for others. But, once again, this reason cannot seem to morally distinguish the career of a stockbroker or banker from that of a drug dealer. Bankers do not currently enjoy the reputation they once had. Many people are not exactly fond of the financial sector as a result of the crisis. Thus, effective altruists working for Wall Street (what MacAskill considers a morally controversial, but not reprehensible, career) may impair their ability to influence others and sully the idea of effective altruism. Conversely, in countries like Mexico and Colombia, drug dealers are often venerated for playing a role similar to that of the state (i.e., giving jobs, providing protection, demanding “taxes” from businesses, building public spaces, etc.). Surveys in Mexico suggest an alarming number of adolescents aspire to become drug dealers or hit men. The moral of the story here is that reputation does not necessarily correlate with morality.

Unless we establish a clear and independent moral criterion to distinguish morally controversial careers from reprehensible ones, it seems like the replaceability argument can justify any kind of job. In other words, by itself, the replaceability argument provides no limit to the kinds of harms one can do.

One can use almost any career to do good or evil. With some careers, however, one can have a greater impact than with others, and 80,000 hours does well in bringing to our attention the moral importance of deciding a career path. If you want to do the most good, and all things considered—the good you can do, the harm you may create, the possibility of being an example to others, the importance of bringing about systemic change, the options available, the shortcomings of the replaceability argument, etc.—maybe you should think twice about working for Wall Street.