Something that we should bear in mind when reading anything written about capitalism or socialism from before the last few decades is that an economy of a combination of state-run businesses with private market ones wasn't even named until the 1950s (as the "mixed economy") and there still isn't a widely-understood good theoretical understanding of highly-regulated sectors in an otherwise market economy ("regulatory capture" is a buzzword, but what does an uncaptured regulator look like, how do you get one and what is public choice theory anyway?)
Real-world economies in that era were mixed and regulated - that's what the New Deal was - but there was a serious lack of theoretical understanding; socialists thought it was a transition to "full socialism"; capitalists feared that it was. The idea that a balance could be permanent was what Keynes and Tawney were trying to bring into being. But political activists hadn't thought of that, or if they had, it was a new idea that wasn't yet a core of a philosophy.
The idea of what we'd now call "New Deal Liberalism" or "social democracy" or "democratic socialism" or whatever - basically, the blandest possible old-fashioned centre-left economics - as being something that was a brand-new idea that was still in the process of being invented is very strange to us. But that's why these people were socialists: they could see that their society was wrong and weren't aware of any other way to fix it. Twenty years later in the 1950s, the same people would be "Butskellists"*, part of the national consensus for a mixed economy.
* A portmanteau of the names of Hugh Gaitskell and R. A. B. Butler, leading figures in the two major parties who were seen as being centrists within their parties and therefore supporters of an economic compromise between socialism and capitalism.
Like Ben Cosman in another comment, I also worry that common-sense morality is a dubious guide. It means different things to different people, people can usually twist it to fit whatever they want, and it's often wrong.
While thinking about how to put this, I remembered a quote of yours that I liked so much that I put it in my quotes collection file:
"If your moral reasoning doesn’t produce conclusions that seem absurd on the face of it… why are you bothering? I want to be the sort of person who would have come up with the absurd conclusion that slavery is wrong, or the absurd conclusion that women should have rights, or the absurd conclusion that sodomy shouldn’t be illegal; therefore, right now, I am the sort of person who comes up with the absurd conclusions that eating meat is wrong, malaria net donations are morally mandatory, and global warming is really important." (Source: https://www.tumblr.com/theunitofcaring/113528122106/the-problem-with-unifying-your-circles-of-concern)
I'd distinguish between "Evil thing is actually Good" (don't do that) from "Neutral thing is actually Good", "Good thing is actually Neutral", "Good thing is actually Evil", or "Neutral thing is actually Evil."
I think that the best argument against my claim is that homosexuality and masturbation were often considered Evil. But I do think that "don't violate common-sense morality" is in fact a useful rule; I might write up a bit more about my thoughts.
Also this post is neat because now I have to rethink my "neoliberals are always the worst" heuristic and whether I have actually overupdated.
("Neoliberals" in the modern internet sense of globalist capitalist technocrats where longtermism and EA are quite quintessential examples of neoliberals. Which I think is somewhat different from the historical Thatcherite notion? Idk, I don't know enough specifics of the history of the term.)
Though on the other hand, "because almost no one had friends on the ground who could go “the Soviet statistics are full of lies.”" does confirm my heuristic...
I think the "common-sense morality" rule is much more slippery than you make it sound. It is easy to look back at things where there's a settled negative judgement of history and think 'oh and they could have avoided that because it was obviously violating common-sense morality too'. But all but the most trivial decisions have *some* downsides, and it seems pretty arbitrary in prospect which of those downsides count as violations of 'common-sense morality', vs being less sacred things we are allowed to argue for and perhaps trade off.
I don't understand the hate against eugenics. I think it is rather obvious that the Galtonian/Mendelian divide was due to ignorance, and things that actually are genetic actually are fit for eugenics-style treatment.
Looking it up in context on Google Books, the horrific-sounding Catholic quote arguing sterilization didn't go far enough in dealing with "defectives" seems pretty clearly sarcastic. It was delivered at a public debate, with the Catholic speaker representing the anti-eugenic side. As the book puts it: "[he] evidently relished the opportunity to assault not just the bill, but the whole eugenic endeavor." "The account of racial crisis, he urged, was simply 'moonshine'". "Some, when inebriated, see bottles--the eugenicist sees defectives."
Mind you, there *were* a number of pro-eugenics Catholics in that era, including a prominent Irish doctor (whose name I unfortunately can't recall) who did sincerely argue for imprisoning "defective" people in institutions to prevent them from reproducing, as an alternative to sinful sterilization.
"I can easily imagine an effective altruist going “ugh, woke people, we have actual problems to solve here, we can’t be obsessed with making sure marginalized groups feel good.” I think it makes sense to listen with charity to people who can’t speak Effective Altruist to see if they’re trying to convey an actually really important insight that we don’t have. Maybe especially if they’re wokesters."
And it dismissed animal sanctuaries with a quip of "Such full-throated endorsement of the identifiable victim bias doesn’t inspire confidence.". Meanwhile, due to my newfound "neoliberals are always the worst" heuristic, I spot-checked this review by reading the relevant parts of the book, and the argument for animal sanctuaries actually sounded pretty strong.
Disclaimer: I haven't read the whole book, so I don't know whether the rest of the book is as relevant as the part about sanctuaries, and I also haven't spot-checked the book's claims about animal sanctuaries, so maybe they are actually much worse than the book suggests.
Something that we should bear in mind when reading anything written about capitalism or socialism from before the last few decades is that an economy of a combination of state-run businesses with private market ones wasn't even named until the 1950s (as the "mixed economy") and there still isn't a widely-understood good theoretical understanding of highly-regulated sectors in an otherwise market economy ("regulatory capture" is a buzzword, but what does an uncaptured regulator look like, how do you get one and what is public choice theory anyway?)
Real-world economies in that era were mixed and regulated - that's what the New Deal was - but there was a serious lack of theoretical understanding; socialists thought it was a transition to "full socialism"; capitalists feared that it was. The idea that a balance could be permanent was what Keynes and Tawney were trying to bring into being. But political activists hadn't thought of that, or if they had, it was a new idea that wasn't yet a core of a philosophy.
The idea of what we'd now call "New Deal Liberalism" or "social democracy" or "democratic socialism" or whatever - basically, the blandest possible old-fashioned centre-left economics - as being something that was a brand-new idea that was still in the process of being invented is very strange to us. But that's why these people were socialists: they could see that their society was wrong and weren't aware of any other way to fix it. Twenty years later in the 1950s, the same people would be "Butskellists"*, part of the national consensus for a mixed economy.
* A portmanteau of the names of Hugh Gaitskell and R. A. B. Butler, leading figures in the two major parties who were seen as being centrists within their parties and therefore supporters of an economic compromise between socialism and capitalism.
Like Ben Cosman in another comment, I also worry that common-sense morality is a dubious guide. It means different things to different people, people can usually twist it to fit whatever they want, and it's often wrong.
While thinking about how to put this, I remembered a quote of yours that I liked so much that I put it in my quotes collection file:
"If your moral reasoning doesn’t produce conclusions that seem absurd on the face of it… why are you bothering? I want to be the sort of person who would have come up with the absurd conclusion that slavery is wrong, or the absurd conclusion that women should have rights, or the absurd conclusion that sodomy shouldn’t be illegal; therefore, right now, I am the sort of person who comes up with the absurd conclusions that eating meat is wrong, malaria net donations are morally mandatory, and global warming is really important." (Source: https://www.tumblr.com/theunitofcaring/113528122106/the-problem-with-unifying-your-circles-of-concern)
I'd distinguish between "Evil thing is actually Good" (don't do that) from "Neutral thing is actually Good", "Good thing is actually Neutral", "Good thing is actually Evil", or "Neutral thing is actually Evil."
I think that the best argument against my claim is that homosexuality and masturbation were often considered Evil. But I do think that "don't violate common-sense morality" is in fact a useful rule; I might write up a bit more about my thoughts.
Also this post is neat because now I have to rethink my "neoliberals are always the worst" heuristic and whether I have actually overupdated.
("Neoliberals" in the modern internet sense of globalist capitalist technocrats where longtermism and EA are quite quintessential examples of neoliberals. Which I think is somewhat different from the historical Thatcherite notion? Idk, I don't know enough specifics of the history of the term.)
Though on the other hand, "because almost no one had friends on the ground who could go “the Soviet statistics are full of lies.”" does confirm my heuristic...
I think the "common-sense morality" rule is much more slippery than you make it sound. It is easy to look back at things where there's a settled negative judgement of history and think 'oh and they could have avoided that because it was obviously violating common-sense morality too'. But all but the most trivial decisions have *some* downsides, and it seems pretty arbitrary in prospect which of those downsides count as violations of 'common-sense morality', vs being less sacred things we are allowed to argue for and perhaps trade off.
I don't understand the hate against eugenics. I think it is rather obvious that the Galtonian/Mendelian divide was due to ignorance, and things that actually are genetic actually are fit for eugenics-style treatment.
Looking it up in context on Google Books, the horrific-sounding Catholic quote arguing sterilization didn't go far enough in dealing with "defectives" seems pretty clearly sarcastic. It was delivered at a public debate, with the Catholic speaker representing the anti-eugenic side. As the book puts it: "[he] evidently relished the opportunity to assault not just the bill, but the whole eugenic endeavor." "The account of racial crisis, he urged, was simply 'moonshine'". "Some, when inebriated, see bottles--the eugenicist sees defectives."
Mind you, there *were* a number of pro-eugenics Catholics in that era, including a prominent Irish doctor (whose name I unfortunately can't recall) who did sincerely argue for imprisoning "defective" people in institutions to prevent them from reproducing, as an alternative to sinful sterilization.
"I can easily imagine an effective altruist going “ugh, woke people, we have actual problems to solve here, we can’t be obsessed with making sure marginalized groups feel good.” I think it makes sense to listen with charity to people who can’t speak Effective Altruist to see if they’re trying to convey an actually really important insight that we don’t have. Maybe especially if they’re wokesters."
A potentially interesting example of this is The Good It Promises, the Harm It Does. I recently read a review of it on EA Forum: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/ZKYpu4WAiwTXDSrX8/?commentId=nhGqRvtLCfJpfocBH
And it dismissed animal sanctuaries with a quip of "Such full-throated endorsement of the identifiable victim bias doesn’t inspire confidence.". Meanwhile, due to my newfound "neoliberals are always the worst" heuristic, I spot-checked this review by reading the relevant parts of the book, and the argument for animal sanctuaries actually sounded pretty strong.
Disclaimer: I haven't read the whole book, so I don't know whether the rest of the book is as relevant as the part about sanctuaries, and I also haven't spot-checked the book's claims about animal sanctuaries, so maybe they are actually much worse than the book suggests.