The moral case for capitalism is lost...capitalism is unsustainable and leads to massive suffering. If EAs actually care about longtermism as they claim to, they ought to start seriously planning large scale economic transition.
I think almost all critiques of capitalism rest on a failure to understand what capitalism actually is. Capitalism is private ownership of the means of production. Socialism is public or common ownership of the means of production. Capitalism is not greed. Socialism is not benevolence and love. They are systems of ownership. Once you see this, a lot of criticisms of capitalism melt away.
If you think capitalism and socialism affect the social ethos then that is true, but you have to actually have to look at whether people are nicer in socialist countries like Cuba, Venezuela, the USSR, Vietnam in the 1980s and so on. It doesn’t seem like they are.
When you’re talking about sustainability, you also have to look at the real environmental performance of these different systems of ownership. It is sort of true that capitalism drives climate change because it drives economic growth. But recognising that is inconsistent with your claim that it leads to massive suffering (which I assume is human suffering). But lots of socialist countries have a terrible environment record. and many capitalist countries and social democracies (which are capitalist with redistribution) have very good environmental records—eg the UK, Germany, Sweden, Switzerland, France all now have low and dropping emissions per head.
To say that the only way to solve climate change is to take the economy into state hands is on the face of it a huge claim that doesn’t seem very plausible. State oil companies don’t seem to care very much about sustainability, for example. State-controlled projects can be directed to any end whether good or bad for the environment. Indeed, having monopolistic control of fossil fuels seems likely to do more harm. The UK used to have a nationalised state-controlled coal board that kept coal mines open long after they were economically viable. Thatcher destroyed this via privatisation. in that case capitalism was clearly good for the environment and socialism bad.
I’m surprised this comment was downvoted so much. It doesn’t seem very nuanced, but here’s obviously a lot going wrong with modern capitalism. While free markets have historically been a key driver of the decline of global poverty (see e.g. this and this), I don’t think it’s wrong to say that longtermists should be thinking about large scale economic transition (though should most likely still involve free markets).
It packs powerful claims that really need to be unpacked (“unsustainable...massive suffering”), with a backhand against the community (“actually care...claim to”) with extraordinary, vague demands (“large economic transition”), all in a single sentence.
It’s hard to be generous, since it’s so vague. If you tried to riff some “steelman” off it, you could work in almost any argument critical of capitalism or even EA in general, which isn’t a good sign.
The forum guidelines suggest I downvote comments when I dislike the effect they have on a conversation. One of the examples the guidelines give is when a comment contains an error or bad reasoning. While I think the reasoning in Ruth’s comment is fine, I think the claim that capitalism is unsustainable and causes “massive suffering” is an error. Nor is the claim backed up by any links to supporting evidence that might change my mind. The most likely effect of ruth_schlenker’s comment is to distract from Halstead’s original comment and inflame the discussion, i.e. have a negative effect on the conversation.
Capitalism could be worse than some alternative due to factory farming, climate change or various other global catastrophic risks, although we really need to consider specific alternatives. So far, I think it’s pretty clear that what we’ve been doing has been unsustainable, but that doesn’t mean replacing capitalism is better than reforming or regulating it, and technology does often address problems.
I think it’s pretty clear that what we’ve been doing has been unsustainable
I don’t understand this claim/intuitively disagree with it as presented but don’t think I understand what you mean well enough to be sure I actually disagree.
The moral case for capitalism is lost...capitalism is unsustainable and leads to massive suffering. If EAs actually care about longtermism as they claim to, they ought to start seriously planning large scale economic transition.
I think almost all critiques of capitalism rest on a failure to understand what capitalism actually is. Capitalism is private ownership of the means of production. Socialism is public or common ownership of the means of production. Capitalism is not greed. Socialism is not benevolence and love. They are systems of ownership. Once you see this, a lot of criticisms of capitalism melt away.
This is one important contribution that Jason Brennan has made to philosophy—http://bleedingheartlibertarians.com/2014/06/socialism-%E2%89%A0-love-and-kindness-capitalism-%E2%89%A0-greed-and-fear/
If you think capitalism and socialism affect the social ethos then that is true, but you have to actually have to look at whether people are nicer in socialist countries like Cuba, Venezuela, the USSR, Vietnam in the 1980s and so on. It doesn’t seem like they are.
When you’re talking about sustainability, you also have to look at the real environmental performance of these different systems of ownership. It is sort of true that capitalism drives climate change because it drives economic growth. But recognising that is inconsistent with your claim that it leads to massive suffering (which I assume is human suffering). But lots of socialist countries have a terrible environment record. and many capitalist countries and social democracies (which are capitalist with redistribution) have very good environmental records—eg the UK, Germany, Sweden, Switzerland, France all now have low and dropping emissions per head.
To say that the only way to solve climate change is to take the economy into state hands is on the face of it a huge claim that doesn’t seem very plausible. State oil companies don’t seem to care very much about sustainability, for example. State-controlled projects can be directed to any end whether good or bad for the environment. Indeed, having monopolistic control of fossil fuels seems likely to do more harm. The UK used to have a nationalised state-controlled coal board that kept coal mines open long after they were economically viable. Thatcher destroyed this via privatisation. in that case capitalism was clearly good for the environment and socialism bad.
I’m surprised this comment was downvoted so much. It doesn’t seem very nuanced, but here’s obviously a lot going wrong with modern capitalism. While free markets have historically been a key driver of the decline of global poverty (see e.g. this and this), I don’t think it’s wrong to say that longtermists should be thinking about large scale economic transition (though should most likely still involve free markets).
I think a downvoters view is that:
It packs powerful claims that really need to be unpacked (“unsustainable...massive suffering”), with a backhand against the community (“actually care...claim to”) with extraordinary, vague demands (“large economic transition”), all in a single sentence.
It’s hard to be generous, since it’s so vague. If you tried to riff some “steelman” off it, you could work in almost any argument critical of capitalism or even EA in general, which isn’t a good sign.
The forum guidelines suggest I downvote comments when I dislike the effect they have on a conversation. One of the examples the guidelines give is when a comment contains an error or bad reasoning. While I think the reasoning in Ruth’s comment is fine, I think the claim that capitalism is unsustainable and causes “massive suffering” is an error. Nor is the claim backed up by any links to supporting evidence that might change my mind. The most likely effect of ruth_schlenker’s comment is to distract from Halstead’s original comment and inflame the discussion, i.e. have a negative effect on the conversation.
Capitalism could be worse than some alternative due to factory farming, climate change or various other global catastrophic risks, although we really need to consider specific alternatives. So far, I think it’s pretty clear that what we’ve been doing has been unsustainable, but that doesn’t mean replacing capitalism is better than reforming or regulating it, and technology does often address problems.
I don’t understand this claim/intuitively disagree with it as presented but don’t think I understand what you mean well enough to be sure I actually disagree.
I have in mind climate change and land use. If we kept consuming at current rates, wouldn’t we likely end up with catastrophic climate change?
If you include consumption trends, things look even worse, but we also have clean tech and government policy coming.