Hi DK, your trusty utilitarian blogger here again, doing my part to increase quality of life on Earth as much as I can. Here, we're talking about how to improve quality of life the most per dollar.
My dirty little secret: I don't donate to political campaigns.
Right now, I'm more of an Oxfam person; see this Felicifia discussion for more. (Felicifia is an online utilitarianism communtiy I help run.) But while I can't bring myself to donate money for TV ads when they could be going to alleviating global poverty, I also can't bring myself to tell you to not to support great candidates. I understand the importance of electing good people, and I can't figure out which donatation improves quality of life more per dollar. It breaks my heart knowing that if the campaign finance situation was better, those hundreds of millions billions of dollars could be spent on education or disaster relief or potable water.
No matter how much money we (on both sides) pump into our elections, we're still going to elect the same number of candidates. It seems to be a zero sum game, like an arms race. As long as winning the elections is a big deal, and as long as we're allowed to pump more money into our respective sides of the races, we're probably going to. Don't get me wrong: We should have some money in politics, to get word out about the candidates and issues. But we passed that point long before we started buying so many TV ads that we get sick of them. It seems the only way to prevent the money from going in is by strictly enforced regulation. My ideas for how to pull that off aren't any better than anyone else's, but perhaps I can at least offer some motivation.
I understand that not everyone would switch their donations to Oxfam or any other charity if they can't donate as much to political campaigns. But even if it's just some fraction of the netroots, that could make a huge positive difference in a lot of people's lives. Consider Oxfam's donations breakdown. In economics terms, this is the "opportunity cost" of donating to politics:
$20 Buys enough maize to feed a family of four in the Rift Valley of Ethiopia for six months.
$30 Buys books to help 10 girls in Afghanistan learn to read and write.
$50 Grows substantially more crops in a region of scarce resources, harsh terrain, and prevalent malnutrition in Peru.
$100 Provides a young student living in poverty in Mali with the vocational training and financial support necessary to start her own weaving business.
$200 Provides disaster preparedness training and technical support to two families in El Salvador.
$500 Secures a small loan for five rural women in Cambodia to start their own fish farms.
$700 Helps to rebuild a house destroyed by earthquake in El Salvador.
$1,000 Brings potable water to 22 families in the Rift Valley of Ethiopia.
$2,000 Provides technical assistance and the business skills needed to better market their produce to 45 farmers in the highlands of Guatemala.
A million dollars brings potable water to 80,000 people. We can raise that in what, a day? But our annual foreign aid budget is around $27 billion dollars (link), and it could easily be several times higher (see ONE for more) so getting the right people allocating that budget may be even more important than our own donations.
So, again, I can't bring myself to ask you to donate to Oxfam. And this breaks my heart.