...This is especially the case for those making $100+ and hour. In many cases you could be paying someone close to minimum wage to do the work in the US. So every hour you work, you get to give 10 hours of benefit to society....
Agree. I am not disputing that concepts validity any many circumstances. What I was pointing out was that it isn't true in all circumstances, and so it can not be generalized to "giving money is always better than volunteering" which was suggested multiple times here.
Hire those most qualified at the cheapest amount possible.
but see, here is another major problem: I believe hiring for the cheapest amount possible is
in itself immoral!It is especially self-defeating when the problems we want to solve are poverty related. People who have the capital to hire labor making every effort to pay the lowest wages possible are the primary
reason for poverty in the first place.
If everyone (non-profit charity or not) paid a minimum "living" wage that was adjusted for inflation, the net effect would be that everyone would contribute to the raising of those third-world employees out of abject poverty (in the form of increased cost of goods). If non-profit charities aren't going to lead the way, its hard to imagine for-profit corporations doing so voluntarily.
If you can make more at your job, then society is better for you to continue to work and donate dollars.
The effective altruism movement holds that you should earn the most money you can and give it to the people who can do the most good per unit of money.
Similarly, I think a decent argument can be made that the majority of ways a person can make the most possible money are themselves amoral at best, and quite possibly immoral. If a teacher quits there job so that they can become a stock trader, marketing consultant, or oil executive, and goes from 46k a year to 460k a year, they can now donate hundreds of thousands more dollars, but they are also no longer spending 53 hours a week doing good things, they are now spending that time neutral to the world (at best). Hell, the people who work for the non-profits should all quit and become lawyers for Monsanto, so they can give more... but then the charities they all work for cease to exist, so who are they going to donate to?
Basically; does the ends justify the means?
You may be miserable, but it is better for society.
but if I have to continue earning what I do forever, I'll go crazy.
You are both PART of society. If every single person spends their entire life sacrificing for others, then
no one is actually happy. Then what was the point? That doesn't seem in the least utilitarian. There needs to be an optimal balance.
If, instead of each person trying to do the maximum possible they could theoretically do, each person focused on balancing out the
harm they personally
contribute to the world, and then do just a
little bit more good on top of that, that would be enough for the world to be slightly more than 100% perfect.
If you are driving in a gas powered car every day, eating factory farmed mammals and taking a few airplane trips a year, then sending a few dollars in the mail somewhere really isn't even bringing you to neutral in terms of your overall impact on the world.
On the other hand, the yogi who lives in a hovel and spends 50 hours a week helping people in need may not need to donate a single dollar to be making the world a better place overall.
The Mustachian is likely to be a lot farther on the low impact side of that range than the average American (although they may be far more into supporting capitalism than average, which itself inevitably perpetuates poverty)
Imagine, for example, that the problem at hand is large amounts of garbage on beaches that is killing wildlife. No one person is going to be able to pick up every piece of garbage on every beach in the world. However, if every single person just made the tiny effort to pack out what they themselves brought in, there is no garbage at all! Occasionally someone may drop something by accident and not notice, so maybe it doesn't go to absolute zero - so there is an opportunity for people to do more good, by packing out what they brought in and then picking up just one or two pieces more.
What I am saying is that every one should put in that extra effort for picking up more than you brought in, but you also shouldn't feel guilty that you aren't devoting your entire life to picking up the slack of other people doing less than nothing.