Greed/Selfishness

Slate.com today stumbled upon the possibility that, maybe, just maybe, greed might be able to solve some, if not most, of the world's really big problems.

Vijay V. Vaitheeswaran's story notes that taking nonprofits and attempting to calculate which are doing the best jobs has transformed the nonprofit world from "sleepy, underresourced, and inefficient to market-minded, well-funded and eager to change the world."

I somewhat questions this conclusion. But I've always kind of wondered it non-profits didn't generally draw those who were eager to change the world but who lacked any real motivation, thus providing for the sleepy atmosphere.

Doubts aside, Vijay says new "philanthrocapitalists" like Ashoka and Acumen Fund, are supposedly responsible for the change.

From there the story pretty quickly shifts into a discussion about how noone really knows "what" works, even though there are pretty accurate and new ways to measure what works. The problem, it turns out, is that donors and others want to put donated money towards doing "good" instead of finding out what "good" is. So instead of spending $100,000 discovering whether Method A is better than Method B or Nonprofit X is better than Nonprofit Y, they spend that $100,000 on Nonprofit X's Method B, even though it may not be the best.

Essentially it boils down to this: the short-term interests of making the donor feel good take precedent over the long-term interests of everyone. This, objectively, is not good for anyone but the donor, and even then only in the short term. So you have a situation where, in an atmosphere designed to help others, where selfishness is probabl least appreciated, it would do the best. If only we could discuss what the best was. This is what happens when you can't recognize the positives of selfishness.

Instead of allowing people to honestly discuss and address what is the best use of a donation you force them to do whatever makes them think is doing the most good. You teach them not to selfishly want to know how to best use their money. It's hard to approach a donor and say "we could do so much more good with your donation if we could use it to study the best method to spend the next guy's $100,000" when neither you nor the donor are supposed to recognize or appreciate the value either party derives from that selfish goal. The donor can't possibly want to know what is the best way to use the money, he's a selfish prick if he does, so he does with it whatever he deems is doing the most good based on blind chance. He feels good, and well, that is pretty much where the certainties stop. Selfishness occurs either way, its just that if it was open and discussed, it would probably provide long-term benefits rather than just closeted good feelings of donors. Donors could and would want to find out where their money would go and nonprofits would likewise want to know the best ways to help their constituents.

You know, sorta like the horrible, selfishly motivated business world. Slate.com is pretty contrary, by which I mean it likes to ferret out counter-intuitive stories. Like that story about how donating canned goods is probably much worse for the poor than simply giving money (the comments of which are great, since some amount to "but, but, but I like giving cans because it makes me feel good").

So its not exactly as if the Pope has converted to the church to selfishness, but still. For me Slate.com is a great source, because half the time it confirms by own contrarian tendancies, and the other half of the time its challenging me on anything I hold dear.