Collective Altruism: why the world is broken and how it can be healed

Society is trapped trapped in a prisoner’s dilemma. To escape we must first accept that within a global community our fates are intertwined, and then turn our focus to nurturing cooperation instead of competition.

Altruism is a wonderful human capacity; we have all experienced the warmth of an altruistic act, or felt the deep sense of resonance from selflessly serving others.

Throughout history we have been handed down stories of people acting altruistically even in the worst of circumstances and at risk to their own safety: giving up their last penny; providing shelter to those persecuted by an advancing army; facing exile or death by standing up for what is right.

In the present day we hear of people saving the life of a stranger by running into burning buildings, donating a kidney, or tirelessly searching for survivors buried under rubble.

This is individual altruism in all its extraordinary and sporadic beauty.

Meanwhile, the Effective Altruism movement has (amidst criticism over its governance and links to scandals such as the FTX collapse) sought to promote a form of everyday altruism achieved by donating a portion of monthly earnings to the most impactful causes.

We are capable of a wide spectrum of altruism and are increasingly aware of the causes that are most in need of altruistic action – so why are we still failing to make the systemic change that is needed to address humanity’s biggest challenges?

What is needed is a coordinated, collective form of altruism – where everyone within a system, every link in the chain, is willing and able to make decisions and take action that prioritise the greater good over individual interests. But the nature of our political structures and business models mean that this is not easily achieved.

PRISONER’S DILEMMA

Real world situations are not always a binary either-or choice, such as that posed in the prisoner’s dilemma, however this model provides a useful context for considering the individual and collective dynamics of altruism and cooperation.

In this scenario there are two prisoners held in separate interrogation rooms, unable to communicate with each other. They know that they face one year in prison if they stay both silent as there is insufficient evidence to convict either of them on the most serious charge. However, they are each offered a deal to testify against the other person, allowing them to walk free whilst the other gets a three-year sentence – but if both prisoners opt for the ‘betrayal’ route, they will both serve a two year jail term.

The choice/outcome matrix is presented below:

Whilst the best outcome collectively is achieved by both staying silent, it is in each prisoner’s individual interests to betray, because this choice gives them the best outcome regardless of what the other person chooses.

Numerous research studies show that in reality cooperation (staying silent) is more prevalent a choice than logic alone would suggest, demonstrating that we are reasonable creatures rather than rational machines.

However, prisoner’s dilemma neatly illustrates the misalignment between individual rationality and collective rationality and is a helpful model for considering society at large, and particularly how decisions are made within political systems.

CHECKS AND BALANCES

The checks and balances of democratic systems ensure that power is not concentrated in the hands of one person or group. However, this also means that multiple people and groups must cooperate to reach a decision.

When a decision is more altruistic by nature – favouring minority or disadvantaged groups, people on the other side of the world, or future generations – it can be more difficult to pass through such a system.

These situations are like a prisoner’s dilemma where the optimal outcome requires each and every individual to prioritise collective interests over individual interests, but with many more decision makers than the two-player game that is prisoner’s dilemma.

Whilst it would not be unusual to flip a coin and get heads twice in a row, altruistic decisions at a systemic level rely upon a chain of decisions where the coin must come down on the right side every single time, dozens or hundreds of times over.

ROOT CAUSE

It is no wonder that many of us feel a sense of frustration or despair. The world is broken in so many ways; we know that change is needed and we have a sense of what should be done. But nothing is happening – at least not near enough. It may only take one individual within the system to prioritise their own interests over the collective and for that coin to land as tails, to break the chain and jeopardise the collective interests.

Instead of committing to change and accepting the short term setback it would bring, we continue to dither and are forced to cope with the damage that results while existential disaster looms.

The social and environmental ills of our time are all symptoms of this same underlying pathology: a lack of, or inability to achieve, collective altruism.

It also explains the brick walls we run into when grappling with issues like climate change and inequality.

Everything from humanitarian aid to reducing emissions – as important as they are – can be viewed as treating the symptoms rather than curing and preventing the underlying common cause.

CRISIS AND THE COLLECTIVE

What is missing is an appreciation that individual and collective interests are intertwined. This is true at all levels: from a family unit to a geopolitical scale, where a country represents the individual.

Acting in the collective interests may not be optimal for individual interests in the short term, but at some point in the future, individual and collective interests converge; acting in the collective interest will therefore benefit the individual in the long term. Conversely, acting in the individual interest will be to the detriment of the collective, which in the long term will ultimately be to the detriment of the individual.

We are part of an interconnected system, so regardless of how remote the constituents of the collective group may be viewed by an individual, their actions and fates are bound together.

This can be seen clearly in times of crisis, which often escalate due to short-sighted and self-serving decisions.

Whilst it can be expected that people are more prone to prioritise self-interest in times of crisis, it is at these moments that collective action is needed most.

One of humanity’s most recent crises offers a perfect example of the fallacy of individual interests on a geopolitical scale and how they are inseparable from collective interests.

It may – hopefully – serve as a lesson for how collective altruism can help avert our most imminent crisis.

CORONAVIRUS AND THE CLIMATE CRISIS

During the pandemic, some countries stock-piled huge volumes of vaccines – far more than what was needed to vaccinate their population. Other countries did not have enough, and these places therefore had a higher probability of vaccine-resistant variants emerging. Those that did (i.e. Omicron) were more contagious and moderately resistant to vaccines, but thankfully less virulent.

If a more deadly vaccine-resistant strain emerged it would have rendered the vaccine stockpiling pointless and plunged the world back into lockdowns because of short-sighted and seemingly self-serving decisions.

Recognising that decisions are really taken within a global system, adopting a model of collective altruism may have temporarily set-back the agendas of some individual countries, but it would have led to a better outcome on a global level.

Like a virus, the environment also cannot be confined by the lines drawn on a map.

The climate crisis is perhaps the most obvious – and certainly the most urgent – call to action for us to make decisions as a truly interconnected and interdependent global community.

Many countries have set ambitious 2030 or 2050 goals and publish figures that indicate progress towards sustainability, without committing to the scale of action required. Some are effectively outsourcing their emissions to other nations.

A smaller number of countries are genuinely taking actions that make a difference. Very few are doing this beyond their own borders.

Although we can be glad that climate action is on the international agenda, the responses of most countries are myopic and nationalistic – they must go further than just keeping one’s own house in order, or creating that appearance.

What matters is making the necessary change on a global level; if we continue to damage the environment and tipping points are reached, we will all suffer. We are all tied into the same outcome. We already have sufficient and shocking evidence that collective interests are intertwined, that the devastating results of climate change are not handed out to each country in proportion to their emissions.

We therefore need to be responsible for our actions at both an individual and collective level. Rather than pressuring and criticising other countries, we need to help and support each other.

PROSPERITY AND COLLECTIVE ALTRUISM

These examples demonstrate the importance of more economically developed countries helping lesser developed ones.

Whilst individual altruism is independent of one’s material wealth, it can be assumed that there is a threshold for prosperity above which a population must be to achieve collective altruism, and understandably so – for those living in poverty, war or oppression, their focus is naturally on their own safety, food and shelter.

If a more economically developed country (‘country M’) achieves collective altruism for the benefit of a less economically developed country (‘country L’), prosperity will rise in country L. And if we accept that all interests are intertwined in a global system, the prosperity of country M will also increase in the long term.

Once country L reaches a certain level of prosperity, it too enacts collective altruism.

We therefore reach a virtuous cycle where collective altruism increases prosperity and prosperity increases collective altruism.

The spark that sets this flywheel in motion is country M acting in a collectively altruistic way. It must be capable of sacrificing an amount of additional prosperity at home in favour of significantly improving the prosperity of those elsewhere, with the belief that it will be both individually and collectively beneficial in the long term.

Achieving this at a systemic level is a tall order – it requires most or all people to be good and to make good decisions most or all of the time. What can be done to improve the chances of this happening?

HOW TO NURTURE COLLECTIVE ALTRUISM

For centuries, philosophers have debated the source of human morality. Are people inherently good, but corrupted by society? Could it be the other way around – do we have an innate evil streak that is civilised by the systems around us? Or are we born with a clean slate and learn a set of morals, shaped by our environment?

All sides of this argument acknowledge that nurture is key; that even if we are born with a certain disposition, it is altered by our environment.

How can we reshape society so that collective altruism is fostered, rather than frustrated?

We suddenly find ourselves in a world that is very different to the one in which many of our foundational systems and structures developed. This systemic infrastructure – how governments are elected, how we do business, how we educate our children – has come under criticism for not incentivising or teaching the right behaviours, for being incongruent with the present day realities and challenges of a global society – an interconnected world of infinite possibility but finite planetary limits.

Should we try to repair this infrastructure, or tear it down and build something new in its place? Reform or revolution – the central question of systems change.

Perhaps these systems are so ingrained within us (and vice versa) that we cannot change them to the extent required, or conceive viable alternatives. Even if we could, it would be future generations that quickly become the guardians of these new systems.

One of our key areas of focus must therefore be education: to equip our children with critical thinking and creativity, confidence and care – to devise completely new systems that are not shackled by the limitations of previous models; to believe that it is possible to replace these cornerstones of civilisation; and above all, to create systems that are just.

Education begins long before a child’s first day at school. Unfortunately, early childhood education is something that much of the world struggles with – including (and especially) western nations. A lack of public funding means that childcare fees are too expensive for most parents; but care ratios mean that technology and efficiencies can only go so far. Even with nursery bills that eclipse mortgage and rent payments, there is not enough income to pay staff a living wage. The numbers simply do not stack up. Compounded by stringent regulation and the resulting administrative burden, staff are overworked and underpaid – not to mention often undervalued – and hence there are severe shortages of childcare spaces.

Finding a way to repair this industry is as important as ensuring that collective altruism is one of the behaviours it is able to nurture.

AVOIDING THE TRAP OF ZERO-SUM THINKING

Beyond the early years and into schools, educational reform is already well underway, with a recognition that training kids to pass exams is not the best approach to developing the behaviours and skills they need to thrive in the world, and to help the world thrive. The task is immense and extends even into the most unexpected and benign of areas, such as recreation.

Kids mostly play finite, zero sum games, teaching them from a young age that one party wins at the expense of the other. These behavioural patterns influence adult life and spill over from ‘finite’ games such as sports (defined as having known players, fixed rules, and an agreed-upon objective), into ‘infinite’ games such as business (known and unknown players, changeable rules, and where the objective is to perpetuate the game – not to win).

The language used by many business leaders (‘beat the competition’, ‘be number one’) shows a lack of understanding of what kind of game they are playing. “There is no such thing as winning business – it doesn’t exist”, Simon Sinek explains – and this common flaw in our wiring ultimately leads to disastrous consequences.

Many aspects of life – and especially the important ones – are not finite or zero sum games. Yet we are effectively teaching our kids that progress and success require us to ‘win’ at someone else’s expense.

What if we are taught that cooperation is the surest way to the optimal outcome? And that we must strive to balance individual and collective interests?

What if our children learn to expect that others will also act in cooperative way?

In the example of prisoner’s dilemma, it becomes much easier to choose the cooperative course of action if it is expected that the other person will be doing the same.

THE BOUNDARIES OF ‘COLLECTIVE’

Finally, we should consider how far we can push the boundaries of to whom – and what – the collective extends.

The first layer is the ‘collective us’ – this includes the self and those most proximate and familiar: me and my group. The wellbeing of the ‘collective us’ is more immediate, more tangible – and so it is easier to appreciate the connection of individual interests with those of the collective us.

Beyond that is the ‘collective other’. There is a higher barrier to overcome here due to distance and unfamiliarity – whether active (xenophobia) or passive (‘out of sight, out of mind’).

The ‘collective other’ has two levels – everyone else and everything else. Considering the interests of present day citizens across the globe is just the first step; what about those of future generations? What about all living things, and the planet itself?

These are still collectives that we belong to, and although more remote or more different, our interests are still intertwined with the collective other.

Throughout human history, our horizons have continued to extend and the ‘collective us’ has gotten increasingly larger, encompassing groups previously viewed as ‘other’. Warring tribes became provincial factions, which became nations – which until the recent rise in nationalistic politics were becoming increasingly cohesive on a multi-national level (e.g. the European Union, the United Nations).

We must seek to course-correct back onto this long-standing arc of history, a slow but sure direction of travel towards togetherness; the path to collective altruism.