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Nobody eloquently argued that idea away, we merely made the culture that relied on that idea economically unviable (at gunpoint). Capitalism is actually a grea

Nobody eloquently argued that idea away, we merely made the culture that relied on that idea economically unviable (at gunpoint). Capitalism is actually a great racism cure. Racism was always economically unviable. It only existed because we passed laws protecting it. For example, greedy contractors hired negroes to build stuff until congress passed the Davis-Bacon law stopping that. Jim Crow wasn't a set of "you can discriminate if you want" laws, it was "you must discriminate". It was an extremely intrusive regulatory regime to the point of regulating dating choices. Uber doesn't care about my race. All they care about are my dollars/rupees.

geofft 10y ago
> Capitalism is actually a great racism cure. Racism was always economically unviable. Well, sort of. What's good for the economy as a whole isn't always the same as what's good for you individually. I might prefer a world in which I know my kids have good jobs, but technology remains stagnant for a generation, to one in which technology improves and the economy as a whole grows, but my kids have much less reliable jobs. (This is essentially Pigou's argument about negative externalities; capitalism is, in theory, a great environmental cure, because you can't make money without a world to make money in, but that doesn't seem to be stopping any capitalists at the moment.) Or the effects of making the economically-rational decision might be so slow and so hard to detect that an actual human will fall back on their biases and never miss the profit they could have gained by not trusting their biases. (This is Greenspan's famous argument about hiring women economists.) There's a timely and (at least for most people) non-racist example here: immigrants on work visas. Economically, it's good for my country to hire the best possible workers at the lowest possible salary, regardless of country of origin. So why do we have borders and ensure jobs go to equally-good workers at higher salaries (or worse workers at the same salary, or both)? Because we like a world in which the employment of our countries citizens' is protected, even at the cost of our economy. Slavery was extremely economically viable. And the fact that you need laws to make slavery illegal, but you don't need so many laws as to make Jim Crow mandatory, leaves me skeptical of the use of unguided capitalism as an effective tool for ending racism (even if in theory it would work).
- yummyfajitas 10y ago
  Well, sort of. What's good for the economy as a whole isn't always the same as what's good for you individually. I might prefer a world in which I know my kids have good jobs, but technology remains stagnant for a generation, to one in which technology improves and the economy as a whole grows, but my kids have much less reliable jobs. This may be true, but it's completely unrelated to the point I made. Slavery is only economically viable if you don't treat the slaves as economic agents. At the time when slavery was being debated, virtually no one actually made this argument because it was patently ridiculous. In fact, the phrase "the dismal science" was coined by a slavery supporter to criticize the economists who opposed slavery. Slavery proponents were actually anti-capitalists who argued that slavery was better for slave and master alike - they favored hierarchical relations rather than exchanges based on mutual agreement. I know Moldbug has been shunned from society for advocating it, but you should read Carlyle if you want to understand history. It's true that if you don't treat foreigners as economic agents, then economics does in fact suggest treating them as an exploitable resource as well. In fact, if you take that premise, we should probably enslave them rather than just pass protectionist laws against them.
  - geofft 10y ago
    So how do we enforce the right sort of capitalism, where all people are seen as economic agents? One of the things that's usually attractive about capitalism is that it is, in a sense, the default. Absent a government saying otherwise, two individuals or businesses or even countries will tend towards capitalism in their relations. But absent a government saying otherwise, slavery also arises, in many places and times in history. What changed to make people say "Hey, we're failing to treat slaves as economic agents"? It may be the case that on paper, slavery was not economically viable ever - but it was absolutely profitable and desirable in practice. (That may be the disconnect; I'm using "economically viable" in a practical sense.)
    - yummyfajitas 10y ago
      The default is pillage and plunder, not capitalism. Capitalism is what arises when you have a government that prevents people from pillaging and plundering, but does little else. The question of who is an economic agent is exogenous to capitalism. What changed to make people say "Hey, we're failing to treat slaves as economic agents"? In the US, a bunch of religious crazies decided to force their biblical interpretations on everyone else. For a while they used politics and small scale warfare (e.g. running around ad night and chopping people's heads off) to push their morals on everyone else, on slavery and other issues like drinking and polygamy. Eventually the limited wars erupted into a total war for dominance, which they won. I'm less familiar with European history so I won't speak about that.

geofft 10y ago

> Capitalism is actually a great racism cure. Racism was always economically unviable. Well, sort of. What's good for the economy as a whole isn't always the same as what's good for you individually. I might prefer a world in which I know my kids have good jobs, but technology remains stagnant for a generation, to one in which technology improves and the economy as a whole grows, but my kids have much less reliable jobs. (This is essentially Pigou's argument about negative externalities; capitalism is, in theory, a great environmental cure, because you can't make money without a world to make money in, but that doesn't seem to be stopping any capitalists at the moment.) Or the effects of making the economically-rational decision might be so slow and so hard to detect that an actual human will fall back on their biases and never miss the profit they could have gained by not trusting their biases. (This is Greenspan's famous argument about hiring women economists.) There's a timely and (at least for most people) non-racist example here: immigrants on work visas. Economically, it's good for my country to hire the best possible workers at the lowest possible salary, regardless of country of origin. So why do we have borders and ensure jobs go to equally-good workers at higher salaries (or worse workers at the same salary, or both)? Because we like a world in which the employment of our countries citizens' is protected, even at the cost of our economy. Slavery was extremely economically viable. And the fact that you need laws to make slavery illegal, but you don't need so many laws as to make Jim Crow mandatory, leaves me skeptical of the use of unguided capitalism as an effective tool for ending racism (even if in theory it would work).

yummyfajitas 10y ago
Well, sort of. What's good for the economy as a whole isn't always the same as what's good for you individually. I might prefer a world in which I know my kids have good jobs, but technology remains stagnant for a generation, to one in which technology improves and the economy as a whole grows, but my kids have much less reliable jobs. This may be true, but it's completely unrelated to the point I made. Slavery is only economically viable if you don't treat the slaves as economic agents. At the time when slavery was being debated, virtually no one actually made this argument because it was patently ridiculous. In fact, the phrase "the dismal science" was coined by a slavery supporter to criticize the economists who opposed slavery. Slavery proponents were actually anti-capitalists who argued that slavery was better for slave and master alike - they favored hierarchical relations rather than exchanges based on mutual agreement. I know Moldbug has been shunned from society for advocating it, but you should read Carlyle if you want to understand history. It's true that if you don't treat foreigners as economic agents, then economics does in fact suggest treating them as an exploitable resource as well. In fact, if you take that premise, we should probably enslave them rather than just pass protectionist laws against them.
- geofft 10y ago
  So how do we enforce the right sort of capitalism, where all people are seen as economic agents? One of the things that's usually attractive about capitalism is that it is, in a sense, the default. Absent a government saying otherwise, two individuals or businesses or even countries will tend towards capitalism in their relations. But absent a government saying otherwise, slavery also arises, in many places and times in history. What changed to make people say "Hey, we're failing to treat slaves as economic agents"? It may be the case that on paper, slavery was not economically viable ever - but it was absolutely profitable and desirable in practice. (That may be the disconnect; I'm using "economically viable" in a practical sense.)
  - yummyfajitas 10y ago
    The default is pillage and plunder, not capitalism. Capitalism is what arises when you have a government that prevents people from pillaging and plundering, but does little else. The question of who is an economic agent is exogenous to capitalism. What changed to make people say "Hey, we're failing to treat slaves as economic agents"? In the US, a bunch of religious crazies decided to force their biblical interpretations on everyone else. For a while they used politics and small scale warfare (e.g. running around ad night and chopping people's heads off) to push their morals on everyone else, on slavery and other issues like drinking and polygamy. Eventually the limited wars erupted into a total war for dominance, which they won. I'm less familiar with European history so I won't speak about that.