socialism is just about making the government bigger
OP framed socialism in terms of resource reallocation. (“The global economy’s current mode of allocating resources is suboptimal” was a key point, which yes, sounded like advocacy for a command economy.) I’m trying to push back on millenarian thinking that ‘socialism’ is a magic wand which will improve resource allocation.
If your notion of ‘socialism’ is favorable tax treatment for worker-owned cooperatives or something, that could be a good thing if there’s solid evidence that worker-owned cooperatives achieve better outcomes, but I doubt it would qualify as a top EA cause.
(An uncomfortable implication of the above commenter’s perspective is that we should redistribute more money from the poor to the rich, on the off chance they put it toward effective causes.)
Here in EA, GiveDirectly (cash transfers for the poor) is considered a top EA cause. It seems fairly plausible to me that if the government cut a bunch of non-evidence-backed school and work programs and did targeted, temporary direct cash transfers instead, that would be an improvement.
If you look at rich countries, there is a strong positive association between left-wing policies and citizen wellbeing.
I’m skimming the post you linked and it doesn’t look especially persuasive. Inferring causation from correlation is notoriously difficult, and these relationships don’t look particularly robust. (Interesting that r^2=0.29 appears to be the only correlation coefficient specified in the article—that’s not a strong association!)
As an American, I don’t particularly want America to move in the direction of a Nordic-style social democracy, because Americans are already very well off. In 2023, the US had the world’s second highest median income adjusted for cost of living, right after Luxembourg. From a poverty-reduction perspective, the US government should be focused on effective foreign aid and facilitating immigration.
Similarly, from a global poverty reduction perspective, we should be focused on helping poor countries. If “socialism” tends to be good for rich countries but bad for poor countries, that suggests it is the wrong tool to reduce global poverty.
Thanks for the response, upvoted.
OP framed socialism in terms of resource reallocation. (“The global economy’s current mode of allocating resources is suboptimal” was a key point, which yes, sounded like advocacy for a command economy.) I’m trying to push back on millenarian thinking that ‘socialism’ is a magic wand which will improve resource allocation.
If your notion of ‘socialism’ is favorable tax treatment for worker-owned cooperatives or something, that could be a good thing if there’s solid evidence that worker-owned cooperatives achieve better outcomes, but I doubt it would qualify as a top EA cause.
Here in EA, GiveDirectly (cash transfers for the poor) is considered a top EA cause. It seems fairly plausible to me that if the government cut a bunch of non-evidence-backed school and work programs and did targeted, temporary direct cash transfers instead, that would be an improvement.
I’m skimming the post you linked and it doesn’t look especially persuasive. Inferring causation from correlation is notoriously difficult, and these relationships don’t look particularly robust. (Interesting that r^2=0.29 appears to be the only correlation coefficient specified in the article—that’s not a strong association!)
As an American, I don’t particularly want America to move in the direction of a Nordic-style social democracy, because Americans are already very well off. In 2023, the US had the world’s second highest median income adjusted for cost of living, right after Luxembourg. From a poverty-reduction perspective, the US government should be focused on effective foreign aid and facilitating immigration.
Similarly, from a global poverty reduction perspective, we should be focused on helping poor countries. If “socialism” tends to be good for rich countries but bad for poor countries, that suggests it is the wrong tool to reduce global poverty.