(my apologies for commenting here without having read your academic paper)
I suspect that two major elements prevent anti-capitalist ideas from being more popular within EA.
First, it tends to be an issue that draws a lot of negative attention as a result of being far outside the Overton window.[1] I’m guessing that if influential EA organizations or figures came out against capitalism, that would do more harm than good: other EA organizations or figures would disagree, and many newspaper articles would be published ridiculing EA. While reputation and status is not the goal of EA, it is (much like other types of power) a useful tool for achieving altruistic goals.
Second, most of us lack a coherent vision of what else we would use as an economic system. The majority of people in EA have lived with a capitalistic economy and society their entire lives. Although some anthropologists or scholars might have a clear conception, I’m guessing that most of us have a lot of ignorance regarding what we would replace capitalism with.[2]
And that isn’t even getting into the tractability element.
If the leader of some organization (say, the Catholic church) were to make a statement that capitalism is bad for people and a different economic system should pursued, many Catholics would (to varying degrees) disagree, disrespect, or leave the catholic church. Even people who are not part of the catholic church would talk about how ridiculous the church’s statement is. It would make it harder to convert people to Catholicism.
I have vague conceptions of worker’s communes from documentaries I’ve watched, and I’ve read plenty about ways that non-capitalistic systems have failed, but I have a paucity of examples for ways that non-capitalistic systems have succeeded. I’d love to live in an intentional community with respect and equality and each contributing according to their ability, but I have no idea how that would work on a society-wide scale. So although the idea appeals to me, it is hard for me to envision how it would actually function.
(my apologies for commenting here without having read your academic paper)
I suspect that two major elements prevent anti-capitalist ideas from being more popular within EA.
First, it tends to be an issue that draws a lot of negative attention as a result of being far outside the Overton window.[1] I’m guessing that if influential EA organizations or figures came out against capitalism, that would do more harm than good: other EA organizations or figures would disagree, and many newspaper articles would be published ridiculing EA. While reputation and status is not the goal of EA, it is (much like other types of power) a useful tool for achieving altruistic goals.
Second, most of us lack a coherent vision of what else we would use as an economic system. The majority of people in EA have lived with a capitalistic economy and society their entire lives. Although some anthropologists or scholars might have a clear conception, I’m guessing that most of us have a lot of ignorance regarding what we would replace capitalism with.[2]
And that isn’t even getting into the tractability element.
If the leader of some organization (say, the Catholic church) were to make a statement that capitalism is bad for people and a different economic system should pursued, many Catholics would (to varying degrees) disagree, disrespect, or leave the catholic church. Even people who are not part of the catholic church would talk about how ridiculous the church’s statement is. It would make it harder to convert people to Catholicism.
I have vague conceptions of worker’s communes from documentaries I’ve watched, and I’ve read plenty about ways that non-capitalistic systems have failed, but I have a paucity of examples for ways that non-capitalistic systems have succeeded. I’d love to live in an intentional community with respect and equality and each contributing according to their ability, but I have no idea how that would work on a society-wide scale. So although the idea appeals to me, it is hard for me to envision how it would actually function.