I don’t think this is quite right. The distinction you seem to be drawing on is ‘people counteract your action’ vs ‘people don’t’, rather that ‘systemic’ vs ‘atomic’. An example of two atomic interventions counteracting each other would be saving lives and family planning to reduce population size; the latter want there to be generally less people, the former keep more people alive. Hence there’s a natural tension there (although both could be good under certain circumstances and views).
It’s true we need to consider if people will counteract us. However, the scenario you suggest where it would be better us, who are for legal reform X to engage in a moral trade with those who are against us and we both agree to do something else, actually requires we could get the other side to agree. If we can’t get the other side to agree to moral trade, we need to think “what is my counterfactual impact given they’ll fight me” vs “what is the counterfactual impact of other stuff i could do”.
You’re right to point out that it could be the case if you do X, people will try to make not X happen, when if you haven’t tried to do X, they would have done Y instead, where Y is a positive outcome. But that could apply to both systemic and atomic interventions. I spend money saving lives, someone concerned about overpopulation could marginally step up their donations to thwart me.
I agree that the ‘people counteract your action’ vs ‘people don’t’ axis and the ‘systemic’ vs ‘atomic’ axis are different—but I think that there’s a strong correlation between the two. Of course any intervention could have people working to counteract it, but I think these counter-actions are much more likely for systemic-type interventions.
This is because many systemic interventions have the property that, if a large majority of people agreed the intervention was a good idea, it would be easy to accomplish, or would have already been accomplished. This is at least true of systemic interventions that take the form of advocacy for social/political change in democracies—there might be other significant classes of systemic change to which this argument does not apply though—perhaps those where we think that many of those who disagree with us can be easily persuaded, or forced to comply.
This means that it’s likely to be the case that the systemic interventions that still need doing must be those that have a significant group of people who disagree with us, and it is these people who are likely to counteract. It is hard to think of ways to campaign for removing rich-world agricultural subsidies in a way that is both effective, and does not invoke counteraction. Drug policy reform would also likely provoke counteraction (and by people who will genuinely believe that they, not we, are the altruists).
But non-systemic interventions seem like they would generally be easier to do in ways that avoid counteraction, because they tend to take the form of atomic improvements rather than sweeping change. I don’t think there actually are many, if any, people who will really spend their money attempting to give more people malaria or schistosomiasis as a response to us spending ours the other way.
Having said all this I think this ceiling-cost approach is a very useful one, and systemic changes can be extremely effective. Rather, I just think these are the sorts of reasons that make might make one `suspicious about systemic changes per se.′ as you put it.
I don’t think this is quite right. The distinction you seem to be drawing on is ‘people counteract your action’ vs ‘people don’t’, rather that ‘systemic’ vs ‘atomic’. An example of two atomic interventions counteracting each other would be saving lives and family planning to reduce population size; the latter want there to be generally less people, the former keep more people alive. Hence there’s a natural tension there (although both could be good under certain circumstances and views).
It’s true we need to consider if people will counteract us. However, the scenario you suggest where it would be better us, who are for legal reform X to engage in a moral trade with those who are against us and we both agree to do something else, actually requires we could get the other side to agree. If we can’t get the other side to agree to moral trade, we need to think “what is my counterfactual impact given they’ll fight me” vs “what is the counterfactual impact of other stuff i could do”.
You’re right to point out that it could be the case if you do X, people will try to make not X happen, when if you haven’t tried to do X, they would have done Y instead, where Y is a positive outcome. But that could apply to both systemic and atomic interventions. I spend money saving lives, someone concerned about overpopulation could marginally step up their donations to thwart me.
I agree that the ‘people counteract your action’ vs ‘people don’t’ axis and the ‘systemic’ vs ‘atomic’ axis are different—but I think that there’s a strong correlation between the two. Of course any intervention could have people working to counteract it, but I think these counter-actions are much more likely for systemic-type interventions.
This is because many systemic interventions have the property that, if a large majority of people agreed the intervention was a good idea, it would be easy to accomplish, or would have already been accomplished. This is at least true of systemic interventions that take the form of advocacy for social/political change in democracies—there might be other significant classes of systemic change to which this argument does not apply though—perhaps those where we think that many of those who disagree with us can be easily persuaded, or forced to comply.
This means that it’s likely to be the case that the systemic interventions that still need doing must be those that have a significant group of people who disagree with us, and it is these people who are likely to counteract. It is hard to think of ways to campaign for removing rich-world agricultural subsidies in a way that is both effective, and does not invoke counteraction. Drug policy reform would also likely provoke counteraction (and by people who will genuinely believe that they, not we, are the altruists).
But non-systemic interventions seem like they would generally be easier to do in ways that avoid counteraction, because they tend to take the form of atomic improvements rather than sweeping change. I don’t think there actually are many, if any, people who will really spend their money attempting to give more people malaria or schistosomiasis as a response to us spending ours the other way.
Having said all this I think this ceiling-cost approach is a very useful one, and systemic changes can be extremely effective. Rather, I just think these are the sorts of reasons that make might make one `suspicious about systemic changes per se.′ as you put it.