This is a really common argument that people make, but I think it's missing some essential externalities. I've worked in the nonprofit space for ~7 years now, and this is the most common over-cocktails argument folks tend to make.
First of all, and most importantly, most people do not give very much of their income away. And as you accumulate more money, your rate of giving tends to decrease. There are counter examples, thankfully (!), but this tends to be the trend.
There are also very important questions about the counter force of the labor you engage in to earn money. "Wall Street" type jobs make a great example here: say you earn $1M in a year by, say, funding expansive oil palm plantation development in southeast asian peat swamps. You may end up giving away a generous (!) 10% of your after-tax earnings, but you probably won't make up for the negative impact that you, or your money, had.
This particular externality is huge when you think about how investment works. For instance, all the major charitable foundations have large endowments that are tied up in various capital markets. Almost all of these foundations only give away their legally-mandated 5% payout amount. All the while, their complex financial machinery is generating, on average, returns in excess, or close to, 5%. So 95% of their money is actually working to make more money through the whole expansive and environmentally destructive capitalism thing[1].
Working at a soup kitchen full-time when you posses important skills does seem silly, though[2]. Like everything, I think there's a balance here. For instance, if you're highly skilled, donating a percentage of your time to volunteer or work at a lower-than-market-or-just-market salary at a nonprofit you believe in can have a tremendously important impact.
1. Not all foundations do this. A notable exception is the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which I believe has a long-term goal of giving away all of their assets in some finite time period. A mixture of private investment in areas of interest can also help, e.g. what Omidyar Network does a lot of (http://www.insidephilanthropy.com/tech-philanthropy/2014/3/2...)
How is turning boreal peat forests into palm oil plantations equal to capital extraction? Isn't it the exact opposite in that land of less value has been turned into land of more value? I think I'm missing something here.
Sorry, I meant to say peat swamps, not boreal forests.
Regarding peat swamps, they are less valuable in that the land isn't being farmed. Transformation of "unvaluable and useless" peat swamps to productive oil palm plantations often, but not always, involves altering the water table of the forest, which causes a massive increase in CO2 (peat is an incredible carbon sink) as well as widespread fires.
Seems like the easiest solution is to make the land valuable in its current form. In the US there's a federal program to control the amount of wheat produced by paying farmers to let their wheat fields lie fallow. I assume though that a palm oil plantation is quite a bit more valuable than a wheat field.....
First of all, and most importantly, most people do not give very much of their income away. And as you accumulate more money, your rate of giving tends to decrease. There are counter examples, thankfully (!), but this tends to be the trend.
There are also very important questions about the counter force of the labor you engage in to earn money. "Wall Street" type jobs make a great example here: say you earn $1M in a year by, say, funding expansive oil palm plantation development in southeast asian peat swamps. You may end up giving away a generous (!) 10% of your after-tax earnings, but you probably won't make up for the negative impact that you, or your money, had.
This particular externality is huge when you think about how investment works. For instance, all the major charitable foundations have large endowments that are tied up in various capital markets. Almost all of these foundations only give away their legally-mandated 5% payout amount. All the while, their complex financial machinery is generating, on average, returns in excess, or close to, 5%. So 95% of their money is actually working to make more money through the whole expansive and environmentally destructive capitalism thing[1].
Working at a soup kitchen full-time when you posses important skills does seem silly, though[2]. Like everything, I think there's a balance here. For instance, if you're highly skilled, donating a percentage of your time to volunteer or work at a lower-than-market-or-just-market salary at a nonprofit you believe in can have a tremendously important impact.
1. Not all foundations do this. A notable exception is the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which I believe has a long-term goal of giving away all of their assets in some finite time period. A mixture of private investment in areas of interest can also help, e.g. what Omidyar Network does a lot of (http://www.insidephilanthropy.com/tech-philanthropy/2014/3/2...)