Great post by the OP. But one thing I wished it touched more upon was the need for internationalism.
Under our current liberal capitalist world economy, countries are incentivised to weaken labour laws, safety conditions, environmental standards, taxes etc to remain competitive.
Both socialism and capitalism do have remedies to prevent/ temper this “race to the bottom” phenomenon. But I think socialists have a good argument to make that a socialist system might be better able to do this by lifting international standards. And this would be of great consequence to Effective Altruists.
Countries in a liberal capitalist world economy are free to institute strong labor laws, make their economy less competitive, and disengage from the global market. They don’t need to wait for the rest of the world to be socialist in order to do this. The fact that they choose not to tells you something about how important economic growth is, compared to strong labor laws. Removing international markets to encourage countries to have better working conditions would like forbidding poor people from working more than 7 hours a day, in order to encourage them to have more recreation.
I am absolutely against countries disengaging from the global market. What I was trying to say is that it might be easier under a socialist world economic system for economies to unite together to lift standards in unison, than compared to a liberal capitalist world economy. And by acting in unison, this would avoid a reduction in economic growth.
For example in our current capitalist economic system, we have a handful of countries like Ireland that have turned themselves into tax havens. Ireland benefits greatly economically by doing this when corporations like Apple headquarter there for tax purposes, but it does so to the detriment of other countries—and the overall effect is probably slightly negative due to overall lower tax collection and less money being spent overall in the public interest.
I think you could also make similar arguments for the Bangladesh and Vietnam economies with respect to labour laws in the garment industry.
Do you think I make a valid argument that there should be EA interest in socialism as international co-ordination might be easier in a post-capitalist world economy?
Also, I noticed Singer made a remark on this I thought I’d share just in case you did not know.
From what I’ve read socialism is all about greater economic cooperation, internationalism, abolishing the state and opposing nationalism & economic protectionism etc.
Maybe in their theoretical goals or mantras, but in practice they generally oppose trade. At least towards poorer countries.
What I was trying to say is that it might be easier under a socialist world economic system for economies to unite together to lift standards in unison, than compared to a liberal capitalist world economy.
Would it? Why? Capitalist states can make agreements too.
For example in our current capitalist economic system, we have a handful of countries like Ireland that have turned themselves into tax havens. Ireland benefits greatly economically by doing this when corporations like Apple headquarter there for tax purposes, but it does so to the detriment of other countries—and the overall effect is probably slightly negative due to overall lower tax collection and less money being spent overall in the public interest.
Well let’s say a global worker collective can get different tax treatment by headquartering in a different state. Are the socialist countries going to do a better job of setting their policies in unison?
Do you think I make a valid argument that there should be EA interest in socialism as international co-ordination might be easier in a post-capitalist world economy?
I just don’t see the mechanism by which coordination would be made easier.
Meanwhile, if international trade shrinks, that might increase conflicts.
In practice, socialist states (20th century) didn’t do a particularly good job of coordinating with each other.
Maybe in their theoretical goals or mantras, but in practice they generally oppose trade. At least towards poorer countries.
I’m not knowledgeable how true/false this is historically… but I don’t suspect it is very true for modern socialist parties/ govt’s. Something like Yanis Varoufakis’s Diem25 project for example. I was very impressed by its effort to try and stop European left wing parties acting in their individual national interests and instead act in harmony.
And also impressed by their solution to Europe’s woes with a call for more Europe as opposed to less (brexit/frexit/grexit/ Euroscepticism etc..)
I will also point out that restricting trade to poor nations is not unique to socialists. Under Trump, the US has reinstated sanctions on Cuba on pretty dubious grounds. It does also preferentially trades with countries with govt’s in line with US’s broader national ambitions (for e.g. Saudi Arabia because they listed aramco)
On whether a socialist world economic system is more adept at working internationally:
Would it? Why? Capitalist states can make agreements too.
Yes, they can and do. But (I suspect) it’s harder for them to do this—simply for the reason that they are states in the first place and that places enormous incentive to act in national interests. I guess, I’m not really interested in “socialist states” as an EA (an you’ll notice avoided saying socialist state or country) - but rather a socialist movement? of some sort, that is not confined to individual states. To me that is what is worthy of investigation.
As an aside
This sort of socialism with international aims was abandoned quite early on in the Russian Revolution with Stalin in favour of socialism in one country, marking a significant break with orthodox socialist thought. I say that as a sort of defence against comparisons of international socialist movement to individual socialist states past and present. But it is also a scathing criticism of the international socialist movement that one section of it in Russia (the most successful section) did go the way of nationalism—and inspired a whole swathe of countries like China and Cuba to adopt its nationalistic model.
Got any thoughts? Let me know, please. Would appreciate it very much. You don’t need to do a item by item breakdown—I know it is very time-consuming (for me also). A short retort is just fine.
On your other points:
Well let’s say a global worker collective can get different tax treatment by headquartering in a different state. Are the socialist countries going to do a better job of setting their policies in unison? I just don’t see the mechanism by which coordination would be made easier. Meanwhile, if international trade shrinks, that might increase conflicts. In practice, socialist states (20th century) didn’t do a particularly good job of coordinating with each other.
I don’t really have good answers for these. As I said socialist countries to me are not even worth entertaining, but how a socialist world economy would respond to tax havens - not sure, perhaps overhaul the current international tax system from facilitating this?? somehow?? I really don’t know. In any case, it will be interesting to see if our current liberal laissez-faire capitalist system will come up with a solution to this problem of tax havens. I think if it does—it would signal a move away from a liberal laissez-faire system to a more planned regulated capitalistic system by definition.
Co-ordination within a socialist system will be difficult in having to accommodate different perspectives and interests in much the way it is difficult under the current system. But… by definition an international socialist movement is about minimising and compromising on conflicting national/ individual/religious interests/perspectives to a act in the international interest, so I think it would be better at co-ordination. But the point I make is semantics.
I don’t suspect it is very true for modern socialist parties/ govt’s.
It’s at the forefront of socialists in the USA who are categorically opposed to ‘sweatshop labor’. Take it from Chomsky whose criticism of Mondragon is “it’s in a market system and they still exploit workers in South America.”
Something like Yanis Varoufakis’s Diem25 project for example.
Socialist? It looks like they are just a political movement. Reform the EU to be more democratic. That’s not socialism. Granted I am not familiar with this.
I will also point out that restricting trade to poor nations is not unique to socialists. Under Trump, the US has reinstated sanctions on Cuba on pretty dubious grounds. It does also preferentially trades with countries with govt’s in line with US’s broader national ambitions (for e.g. Saudi Arabia because they listed aramco)
Some of that is political moves which happen under any kind of government and are not about anyone being rich or poor. USSR put an embargo on West Berlin. Cuba used to refuse to buy food from the US because they didn’t want to legitimize the embargo.
Otherwise, capitalist countries also engage in protectionism per se. That hits wealthier countries too. Notice how Trump’s main focus is China which is a middle income country. And there have been trade scuffles with the EU recently. I’m not sure because I haven’t seen anyone really investigate this, but I don’t think it hits the poorest countries very hard, because most industries in these countries are not competitors to US industries.
The anti-globalization thing is an additional phenomenon on top of these things.
This sort of socialism with international aims was abandoned quite early on in the Russian Revolution with Stalin in favour of socialism in one country, marking a significant break with orthodox socialist thought. I say that as a sort of defence against comparisons of international socialist movement to individual socialist states past and present. But it is also a scathing criticism of the international socialist movement that one section of it in Russia (the most successful section) did go the way of nationalism—and inspired a whole swathe of countries like China and Cuba to adopt its nationalistic model.
In this context, it looks like ‘international socialism’ means spreading socialism throughout the entire world. Which is very different from openness to trade.
Socialist states have traded with each other. E.g. the Soviets bought lots of sugar from Cuba and exported energy. They’re not going to think it’s exploitation if the other country is socialist. But if the other state is capitalist then it’s not going to happen. It all depends on the context. Here I’m mainly talking about the US or UK going socialist while the developing world presumably doesn’t change very much.
Co-ordination within a socialist system will be difficult in having to accommodate different perspectives and interests in much the way it is difficult under the current system. But… by definition an international socialist movement is about minimising and compromising on conflicting national/ individual/religious interests/perspectives to a act in the international interest, so I think it would be better at co-ordination. But the point I make is semantics.
It’s one thing to talk about theoretical comparisons but a key issue for the short and medium term (and possibly long term) future is the existence of stable, credible institutions. Liberal capitalist states have a decent framework for international trade and monetary agreements, we have G7 and G20 and so on. If you sweep these norms and institutions aside to build something better, you can face a lot of new problems from the power vacuum. It would take time and work to build things up again.
Great post by the OP. But one thing I wished it touched more upon was the need for internationalism.
Under our current liberal capitalist world economy, countries are incentivised to weaken labour laws, safety conditions, environmental standards, taxes etc to remain competitive.
Both socialism and capitalism do have remedies to prevent/ temper this “race to the bottom” phenomenon. But I think socialists have a good argument to make that a socialist system might be better able to do this by lifting international standards. And this would be of great consequence to Effective Altruists.
Does the OP have any thoughts on this?
Countries in a liberal capitalist world economy are free to institute strong labor laws, make their economy less competitive, and disengage from the global market. They don’t need to wait for the rest of the world to be socialist in order to do this. The fact that they choose not to tells you something about how important economic growth is, compared to strong labor laws. Removing international markets to encourage countries to have better working conditions would like forbidding poor people from working more than 7 hours a day, in order to encourage them to have more recreation.
Thanks for the reply Kbog.
Of course withdrawing from international markets would be a economically backwards thing to do. But, I don’t think that is what socialists are generally for. From what I’ve read socialism is all about greater economic cooperation, internationalism, abolishing the state and opposing nationalism & economic protectionism etc. These are some wikis that I think support this view: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internationalism_(politics) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proletarian_internationalism
I am absolutely against countries disengaging from the global market. What I was trying to say is that it might be easier under a socialist world economic system for economies to unite together to lift standards in unison, than compared to a liberal capitalist world economy. And by acting in unison, this would avoid a reduction in economic growth.
For example in our current capitalist economic system, we have a handful of countries like Ireland that have turned themselves into tax havens. Ireland benefits greatly economically by doing this when corporations like Apple headquarter there for tax purposes, but it does so to the detriment of other countries—and the overall effect is probably slightly negative due to overall lower tax collection and less money being spent overall in the public interest.
I think you could also make similar arguments for the Bangladesh and Vietnam economies with respect to labour laws in the garment industry.
Do you think I make a valid argument that there should be EA interest in socialism as international co-ordination might be easier in a post-capitalist world economy?
Also, I noticed Singer made a remark on this I thought I’d share just in case you did not know.
″ Capitalism is very far from a perfect system, but so far we have yet to find anything that clearly does a better job of meeting human needs than a regulated capitalist economy coupled with a welfare and health care system that meets the basic needs of those who do not thrive in the capitalist economy. If we ever do find a better system, I’ll be happy to call myself an anti-capitalist.” https://web.archive.org/web/20181028225703/http://www.newleftproject.org/index.php/site/article_comments/ethics_and_the_left/
Maybe in their theoretical goals or mantras, but in practice they generally oppose trade. At least towards poorer countries.
Would it? Why? Capitalist states can make agreements too.
Well let’s say a global worker collective can get different tax treatment by headquartering in a different state. Are the socialist countries going to do a better job of setting their policies in unison?
I just don’t see the mechanism by which coordination would be made easier.
Meanwhile, if international trade shrinks, that might increase conflicts.
In practice, socialist states (20th century) didn’t do a particularly good job of coordinating with each other.
Thanks again for the reply.
I’m not knowledgeable how true/false this is historically… but I don’t suspect it is very true for modern socialist parties/ govt’s. Something like Yanis Varoufakis’s Diem25 project for example. I was very impressed by its effort to try and stop European left wing parties acting in their individual national interests and instead act in harmony.
And also impressed by their solution to Europe’s woes with a call for more Europe as opposed to less (brexit/frexit/grexit/ Euroscepticism etc..)
I will also point out that restricting trade to poor nations is not unique to socialists. Under Trump, the US has reinstated sanctions on Cuba on pretty dubious grounds. It does also preferentially trades with countries with govt’s in line with US’s broader national ambitions (for e.g. Saudi Arabia because they listed aramco)
Yes, they can and do. But (I suspect) it’s harder for them to do this—simply for the reason that they are states in the first place and that places enormous incentive to act in national interests. I guess, I’m not really interested in “socialist states” as an EA (an you’ll notice avoided saying socialist state or country) - but rather a socialist movement? of some sort, that is not confined to individual states. To me that is what is worthy of investigation.
As an aside
This sort of socialism with international aims was abandoned quite early on in the Russian Revolution with Stalin in favour of socialism in one country, marking a significant break with orthodox socialist thought. I say that as a sort of defence against comparisons of international socialist movement to individual socialist states past and present. But it is also a scathing criticism of the international socialist movement that one section of it in Russia (the most successful section) did go the way of nationalism—and inspired a whole swathe of countries like China and Cuba to adopt its nationalistic model.
Got any thoughts? Let me know, please. Would appreciate it very much. You don’t need to do a item by item breakdown—I know it is very time-consuming (for me also). A short retort is just fine.
On your other points:
I don’t really have good answers for these. As I said socialist countries to me are not even worth entertaining, but how a socialist world economy would respond to tax havens - not sure, perhaps overhaul the current international tax system from facilitating this?? somehow?? I really don’t know. In any case, it will be interesting to see if our current liberal laissez-faire capitalist system will come up with a solution to this problem of tax havens. I think if it does—it would signal a move away from a liberal laissez-faire system to a more planned regulated capitalistic system by definition.
Co-ordination within a socialist system will be difficult in having to accommodate different perspectives and interests in much the way it is difficult under the current system. But… by definition an international socialist movement is about minimising and compromising on conflicting national/ individual/religious interests/perspectives to a act in the international interest, so I think it would be better at co-ordination. But the point I make is semantics.
It’s at the forefront of socialists in the USA who are categorically opposed to ‘sweatshop labor’. Take it from Chomsky whose criticism of Mondragon is “it’s in a market system and they still exploit workers in South America.”
Socialist? It looks like they are just a political movement. Reform the EU to be more democratic. That’s not socialism. Granted I am not familiar with this.
Some of that is political moves which happen under any kind of government and are not about anyone being rich or poor. USSR put an embargo on West Berlin. Cuba used to refuse to buy food from the US because they didn’t want to legitimize the embargo.
Otherwise, capitalist countries also engage in protectionism per se. That hits wealthier countries too. Notice how Trump’s main focus is China which is a middle income country. And there have been trade scuffles with the EU recently. I’m not sure because I haven’t seen anyone really investigate this, but I don’t think it hits the poorest countries very hard, because most industries in these countries are not competitors to US industries.
The anti-globalization thing is an additional phenomenon on top of these things.
In this context, it looks like ‘international socialism’ means spreading socialism throughout the entire world. Which is very different from openness to trade.
Socialist states have traded with each other. E.g. the Soviets bought lots of sugar from Cuba and exported energy. They’re not going to think it’s exploitation if the other country is socialist. But if the other state is capitalist then it’s not going to happen. It all depends on the context. Here I’m mainly talking about the US or UK going socialist while the developing world presumably doesn’t change very much.
It’s one thing to talk about theoretical comparisons but a key issue for the short and medium term (and possibly long term) future is the existence of stable, credible institutions. Liberal capitalist states have a decent framework for international trade and monetary agreements, we have G7 and G20 and so on. If you sweep these norms and institutions aside to build something better, you can face a lot of new problems from the power vacuum. It would take time and work to build things up again.