One (probably surmountable but non-trivial in my view) problem with this is that once you start trying to draft a statement about exactly what attitude we have to capitalism/economics you’ll start to see underlying diversity beneath “don’t want to abolish capitalism.” This, I predict, will make it trickier than it seems to come up with anything clear and punchy that everyone can sign onto.
In particular, leaving aside for a minute people with actually anti-capitalist views, you’ll start to see a split between people with actual neo-liberal or libertarian economic views they are confident of who would give ringing endorsements of capitalism, people who are just skeptical that we know whether or not “capitalism is good” is true or regard it as too vague to be worth assessing, and people who simply don’t think political activism is as good a use of the marginal dollar as other stuff, because they think it’s usually not very neglected or tractable. For example, I’d hesitate to sign onto “we are pro-capitalist”, but not because I’m anti, so much as because I have a mixture of the second 2 positions.
Incidentally, for what it’s worth, I strongly suspect that in developed countries with a traditional “party of business” and “party of labour”, a somewhat higher % of EAs in those countries vote for the “labour” one. I actually think that is consistent with what you’ve said about community attitudes to capitalism. But if I’m correct about it, I think saying were pro-capitalis
economic rightists will actually confuse at least some outsiders about where we stand on a measure of political affiliation they really care about. (I’m thinking of people on the centre-left here primarily, rather than more radical socialists.)
One (probably surmountable but non-trivial in my view) problem with this is that once you start trying to draft a statement about exactly what attitude we have to capitalism/economics you’ll start to see underlying diversity beneath “don’t want to abolish capitalism.” This, I predict, will make it trickier than it seems to come up with anything clear and punchy that everyone can sign onto. In particular, leaving aside for a minute people with actually anti-capitalist views, you’ll start to see a split between people with actual neo-liberal or libertarian economic views they are confident of who would give ringing endorsements of capitalism, people who are just skeptical that we know whether or not “capitalism is good” is true or regard it as too vague to be worth assessing, and people who simply don’t think political activism is as good a use of the marginal dollar as other stuff, because they think it’s usually not very neglected or tractable. For example, I’d hesitate to sign onto “we are pro-capitalist”, but not because I’m anti, so much as because I have a mixture of the second 2 positions.
Incidentally, for what it’s worth, I strongly suspect that in developed countries with a traditional “party of business” and “party of labour”, a somewhat higher % of EAs in those countries vote for the “labour” one. I actually think that is consistent with what you’ve said about community attitudes to capitalism. But if I’m correct about it, I think saying were pro-capitalis economic rightists will actually confuse at least some outsiders about where we stand on a measure of political affiliation they really care about. (I’m thinking of people on the centre-left here primarily, rather than more radical socialists.)