BOB GRABOYES: The Fatal Conceit and Effective Altruism.

The greatest economics lesson of all may reside in the Yiddish expression, “Der mensch tracht, un Gott lacht” (“Man plans, and God laughs.”) That, writ small, is the message of Friedrich Hayek’s broadsides against central planning in The Fatal Conceit and “The Use of Knowledge in Society.” The latter was one of the most influential economic essays of the 20th century, and in a gentler time, when philosophical adversaries actually listened to one another (some, at least), a significant number of socialists and would-be planners found the anti-socialist Hayek’s arguments persuasive (or at least informative). . . .

In recent decades, charitable giving has been a somewhat atomized endeavor. Even John D. Rockefeller, Andrew Carnegie, and Henry Ford each controlled a relatively small percentage of charitable donations. The socialism suggested above by Nathan Robinson envisions a world where charity is planned by the monopolized, centralized might of government. EA, it seems to me, seeks a middle ground, where a goodly percentage of donations are directed (or at least strongly suggested) by a relatively compact set of EA organizations. The question is whether this leads to groupthink—a world where a relatively like-minded cadre of EA organizations mutually self-reinforce and direct themselves toward similar visions of optimal giving. I write often on early-20th century eugenics, where the charitable arms of Carnegie, Ford, and others did, in fact, fall prey to groupthink, with horrific consequences.

EA received a certain taste of this risk when Samuel Bankman-Fried (“SBF”) emerged as perhaps earth’s most visible public face of EA. Given the adulation he had received and the spectacular manner of his fall, one might guess that divine laughter was especially hearty in the wake of that particular man’s plans.

He was a grifter, too, which ought to be some kind of a clue.