Our Philanthropy Advisory Fellowship at Harvard University Effective Altruism Student Group has just published an EA course syllabus that we developed: http://www.harvardea.org/blog/changemakers
We hope this can be a helpful resource for EA groups at other schools to encourage faculty to create new courses on EA.
The problem with this kind of reasoning is that in the same way one could attempt to justify slavery: just because sweatshops/slavery provide living conditions better than none, it doesn't mean we shouldn't strive to abolish them. Hence, by boycotting sweatshops one gives an important message to corporations that use them. As a result, under sufficient pressure, companies will change their rules and take care to provide better working conditions. The goal here is long-term structural improvement of social/economic practices rather than short-term help.
First let me clarify that I only support people voluntarily taking sweatshop jobs-I do not support anything involuntary. I think it is good to consider the long-term implications of present actions. But by taking a sweatshop job, not only can people afford life-saving interventions, but they can also afford things like elementary education, which has massive long-term benefits. Saying something is better does not imply that it is good. Starting with sweatshop jobs, the four Asian Tigers have made a dramatic rise, where according to purchasing power parity_... (read more)