I don’t see why we’d expect less factory farms under socialism
The comment was about how factory farms are an argument against capitalism; not about why it is an argument for other economic philosophies, so one can’t conclude from this that some other specific economic philosophy (e.g., socialism) doesn’t have that argument against them. It could be that, e.g. factory farms are an argument against capitalism and socialism, but not mutualism.
It’s also not why socialists support socialism
There was no claim that this is why socialists support socialism, but even if there was, it doesn’t really matter for the argument. Even if we could conclude from “factory farms are an argument against capitalism” that “socialism is good for animal welfare”, why would the motivation of socialists matter? Even if socialists created better animal welfare only unintentionally, wouldn’t that still be one reason to support them? (Assuming you care about the consequences of policy more than the virtues of the participants)
except via us being poorer in general
Lastly, I want to talk about this claim. But less so to address you, and more so to address the forum users.
I don’t think that socialism would make us poorer, at least not in the long run. The dynamics of capitalism are very destructive (e.g. negative externalities, regulatory capture, planned obsolescence...) and countries like the Nordic countries, with more socialist policies, tend to do better. Socialist firms were shown in meta analyses to not be less productive than capitalist firms, while being vastly moreresilient (among many other beneficialattributes), so they would help the economy grow more in the long run, making us richer. This is not all there is to say; there are many more arguments and there are many more other factors to consider, but in the end, why bother?
You could spend time and energy crafting long chains of arguments with lots of citations and data on unpopular positions (even if you weren’t the person who made an assertion, like in this case) only to get vastly less karma/voting power than people who just assert the popular opinion. I.e., in this case, the assertion “socialism would make us poorer” without any sources or arguments. Which btw is fine, this is an internet comment not an academic paper, but I’ve experienced the dynamics on this forum for years; if one were to reply that it wouldn’t make us poorer, also without sources, or even with some sources, you would lose karma/voting power. And then another person would jump in and point out that the reply didn’t cover literally every aspect of the economy, and it avoided talking about this or that part, which is fine, demands for rigor are good, but the forum as a whole more often than not makes isolated demands for rigor, and the original anti-socialism assertion rarely if ever gets such a demand.
Case in point, the comment you’re replying to. It didn’t even make the assertion that socialism is better, just posted some studies and data from which one could infer that he is pro-socialism, and that’s enough to make him lose karma/voting power, while your stronger assertion without any studies/data (which, again, is fine) get lots of karma.
(Again, while the first two points are aimed at your reply, this last point is aimed at the broader EA forum user base.)
The comment was about how factory farms are an argument against capitalism; not about why it is an argument for other economic philosophies, so one can’t conclude from this that some other specific economic philosophy (e.g., socialism) doesn’t have that argument against them. It could be that, e.g. factory farms are an argument against capitalism and socialism, but not mutualism.
There was no claim that this is why socialists support socialism, but even if there was, it doesn’t really matter for the argument. Even if we could conclude from “factory farms are an argument against capitalism” that “socialism is good for animal welfare”, why would the motivation of socialists matter? Even if socialists created better animal welfare only unintentionally, wouldn’t that still be one reason to support them? (Assuming you care about the consequences of policy more than the virtues of the participants)
Lastly, I want to talk about this claim. But less so to address you, and more so to address the forum users.
I don’t think that socialism would make us poorer, at least not in the long run. The dynamics of capitalism are very destructive (e.g. negative externalities, regulatory capture, planned obsolescence...) and countries like the Nordic countries, with more socialist policies, tend to do better.
Socialist firms were shown in meta analyses to not be less productive than capitalist firms, while being vastly more resilient (among many other beneficial attributes), so they would help the economy grow more in the long run, making us richer. This is not all there is to say; there are many more arguments and there are many more other factors to consider, but in the end, why bother?
You could spend time and energy crafting long chains of arguments with lots of citations and data on unpopular positions (even if you weren’t the person who made an assertion, like in this case) only to get vastly less karma/voting power than people who just assert the popular opinion. I.e., in this case, the assertion “socialism would make us poorer” without any sources or arguments. Which btw is fine, this is an internet comment not an academic paper, but I’ve experienced the dynamics on this forum for years; if one were to reply that it wouldn’t make us poorer, also without sources, or even with some sources, you would lose karma/voting power. And then another person would jump in and point out that the reply didn’t cover literally every aspect of the economy, and it avoided talking about this or that part, which is fine, demands for rigor are good, but the forum as a whole more often than not makes isolated demands for rigor, and the original anti-socialism assertion rarely if ever gets such a demand.
Case in point, the comment you’re replying to. It didn’t even make the assertion that socialism is better, just posted some studies and data from which one could infer that he is pro-socialism, and that’s enough to make him lose karma/voting power, while your stronger assertion without any studies/data (which, again, is fine) get lots of karma.
(Again, while the first two points are aimed at your reply, this last point is aimed at the broader EA forum user base.)