I recently ran into this book review by Scott Alexander. While reading the book review I kept being struck by passages that could just as well have been describing the EA movement. 

The Fabian movement was an influential British socialist movement. They managed to get their members into various important positions in society to lobby for their, at the time, radical socialist agenda demanding free public education, women's suffrage, eight hour work days and more.

Even its critics sounded familiar, arguing that the Fabian society was nothing more than a talking-club the privileged!


A few highlights from the review:

Whatever the Fabians’ other advantages, they arose at a really good time to be a socialist thinker. There was a sort of feeling in the air that socialism was the wave of the future, that there were literally no good arguments whatsoever against it, that you were either an intellectual (in which case it was obvious that socialism was better) or you were just so thoughtless that you had never even considered the matter at all

 

He didn’t expect forceful action – recruitment campaigns, branch organizations, or the like – to have any effect. Instead, he favored a soft touch. Have the sort of intellectual atmosphere that talented people would be attracted to. Gradually draw them in with interesting social and intellectual activities. Once they’re attached, get them in on the first rung of some ladder or other – local politics, informal debate, small-time pamphlet writing. Have a few geniuses around who can recognize other geniuses. Then have positions to put people in once they’re worthy of it – whether it’s the lecture circuit, the propaganda business, or a university for them to teach at.

 

The Society’s members tended to be strange people, mercurial and hard to keep on task. Occasionally they would get distracted and forget about communism entirely, running off to worry about art or philosophy or ghost-hunting or something.

 

Pease was generally unimpressed with how these worked out. He felt experience had proven most of the people based outside London to be intellectually second-rate and without much to contribute.


It seems to me there is a ton to learn from the history of the Fabian society. Both from its successes and shortcomings. I'm curious to hear what you think.

79

0
0

Reactions

0
0
Mentioned in
Comments4


Sorted by Click to highlight new comments since:

The Fabian Society even went ahead with one of the megaprojects currently being discussed in EA: founding a new university

In 1894, Fabian Society members Beatrice and Sidney Webb, Graham Walls, and George Bernard Shaw established the London School of Economics and Political Science to improve social science education and address what they saw as the world's most pressing problems of the time.

You might be interested in this list of social-change movements by Mark Lutter (former head of Charter Cities Institute).  Excerpting the first third of the page:

Inspired by Patrick Collison's Fast page, I thought it worthwhile to build a list of examples of social change. One of they key challenges of the 21st century is rebuilding our institutions for the digital age. Examples of past successes and failures of social change can help inform that approach.

Fabian Society - A British socialist organization dedicated to advancing democratic socialism via a gradualist approach, rather than revolution, in democracies. Founded in 1884, many of the leading intellectuals of the era were associated with the Fabians, including, George Bernard Shaw and H.G. Wells, and Sidney and Beatrice Webb. It was influential and arguably successful in its efforts, founding the London School of Economics and Political Science, and influencing many leaders of former British Colonies, including India's Jawaharlal Nehru, Pakistan's Muhammad Ali Jinnah, and Singapore's Lee Kuan Yew.

Corn Laws Repeal- The corn laws were tariffs on imported food and corn in the first half of the 19th century in the United Kingdom. They kept prices high, benefitting domestic producers and landowners while hurting the average Brit. The repeal of the corn laws is seen as a decisive move to free trade and a victory for liberalism. It also represented a shift in power from rural areas to urban areas. The Anti-Corn Law League is one of the early examples of mass mobilization, writing op-eds, hosting speeches, mobilizing action, even electing men to parliament. It became a model for later reform movements.

YIMBYs: YIMBY's, or yes, in my backyard, is a pro-housing movement that has recently emerged among urban millennials. They're opposed to NIMBY's, and advocate for increasing density in urban areas to lower housing costs. The first groups were started in 2014 in the San Francisco Bay Area, the center of the housing crisis. The movement has gone international, with chapters in the United Kingdom and Canada. Despite it's nascence, there have been several prominent wins as cities including Berkeley, Sacramento, and Minneapolis are moving away from single family housing requirements.

Mont Pelerin Society: A network of scholars dedicated to preserving and advancing classical liberal ideas in the aftermath of World War II. Founded by luminaries including Friedrich Hayek, Frank Knight, Carl Popper, Ludwig von Mises, George Stigler, and Milton Friedman. The joke is that in the 1950's all libertarians knew each other, in part because the movement was so small and in part because it was well networked in part due to organizations like Mont Pelerin. The ideas of Hayek, Friedman, and Mont Pelerin are credited with the Thatcher and Reagan revolutions.

Meiji Restoration: A period of industrialization in Japan led by the state. Japan had closed themselves off from international trade for centuries, before being forced to open their borders by Commodore Perry in 1853. In 1868 power was concentrated under the Emperor in a modernization effort that ultimately proved successful. The policy changes included the removal of previous privileges' by the Samurai, knowledge sharing by attracting western workers and education, and an emphasis on industrialization. The modernization was successful with Japan winning a war against Russia in 1905.

See Mark Lutter's site for a bunch more!

Thanks for posting this! I think it is often really useful to look at previous historical movements to learn lessons and contextualise modern concerns.

I really enjoyed that review, and found two potential further similarities between the Fabians and EA. Firstly, the Fabians had a number of strategies to have an impact. Those mentioned in the review include pamphleting, running political campaigns and even setting up universities. Secondly, the Fabians are said to have been a politically diverse group, or a 'big tent'. I think that at its best, EA can learn from a variety of different traditions to try to find the most effective ways to do good.

I think the Mont Pellerin Society were pretty similar in approach too (https://www.effectivealtruism.org/articles/ea-neoliberal)

Curated and popular this week
 ·  · 7m read
 · 
This is a linkpost for a paper I wrote recently, “Endogenous Growth and Excess Variety”, along with a summary. Two schools in growth theory Roughly speaking: In Romer’s (1990) growth model, output per person is interpreted as an economy’s level of “technology”, and the economic growth rate—the growth rate of “real GDP” per person—is proportional to the amount of R&D being done. As Jones (1995) pointed out, populations have grown greatly over the last century, and the proportion of people doing research (and the proportion of GDP spent on research) has grown even more quickly, yet the economic growth rate has not risen. Growth theorists have mainly taken two approaches to reconciling [research] population growth with constant economic growth. “Semi-endogenous” growth models (introduced by Jones (1995)) posit that, as the technological frontier advances, further advances get more difficult. Growth in the number of researchers, and ultimately (if research is not automated) population growth, is therefore necessary to sustain economic growth. “Second-wave endogenous” (I’ll write “SWE”) growth models posit instead that technology grows exponentially with a constant or with a growing population. The idea is that process efficiency—the quantity of a given good producible with given labor and/or capital inputs—grows exponentially with constant research effort, as in a first-wave endogenous model; but when population grows, we develop more goods, leaving research effort per good fixed. (We do this, in the model, because each innovator needs a monopoly on his or her invention in order to compensate for the costs of developing it.) Improvements in process efficiency are called “vertical innovations” and increases in good variety are called “horizontal innovations”. Variety is desirable, so the one-off increase in variety produced by an increase to the population size increases real GDP, but it does not increase the growth rate. Likewise exponential population growth raise
 ·  · 4m read
 · 
TLDR When we look across all jobs globally, many of us in the EA community occupy positions that would rank in the 99.9th percentile or higher by our own preferences within jobs that we could plausibly get.[1] Whether you work at an EA-aligned organization, hold a high-impact role elsewhere, or have a well-compensated position which allows you to make significant high effectiveness donations, your job situation is likely extraordinarily fortunate and high impact by global standards. This career conversations week, it's worth reflecting on this and considering how we can make the most of these opportunities. Intro I think job choice is one of the great advantages of development. Before the industrial revolution, nearly everyone had to be a hunter-gatherer or a farmer, and they typically didn’t get a choice between those. Now there is typically some choice in low income countries, and typically a lot of choice in high income countries. This already suggests that having a job in your preferred field puts you in a high percentile of job choice. But for many in the EA community, the situation is even more fortunate. The Mathematics of Job Preference If you work at an EA-aligned organization and that is your top preference, you occupy an extraordinarily rare position. There are perhaps a few thousand such positions globally, out of the world's several billion jobs. Simple division suggests this puts you in roughly the 99.9999th percentile of job preference. Even if you don't work directly for an EA organization but have secured: * A job allowing significant donations * A position with direct positive impact aligned with your values * Work that combines your skills, interests, and preferred location You likely still occupy a position in the 99.9th percentile or higher of global job preference matching. Even without the impact perspective, if you are working in your preferred field and preferred country, that may put you in the 99.9th percentile of job preference
 ·  · 5m read
 · 
Summary Following our co-founder Joey's recent transition announcement we're actively searching for exceptional leadership to join our C-level team and guide AIM into its next phase. * Find the full job description here * To apply, please visit the following link * Recommend someone you think could be a great fit here * Location: London strongly preferred. Remote candidates willing to work from London at least 3 months a year and otherwise overlapping at least 6 hours with 9 am to 5 pm BST will be considered. We are happy to sponsor UK work visas. * Employment Type: Full-time (35 hours) * Application Deadline: rolling until August 10, 2025 * Start Date: as soon as possible (with some flexibility for the right candidate) * Compensation: £45,000–£90,000 (for details on our compensation policy see full job description) Leadership Transition On March 15th, Joey announced he's stepping away from his role as CEO of AIM, with his planned last day as December 1st. This follows our other co-founder Karolina's completed transition in 2024. Like Karolina, Joey will transition to a board member role while we bring in new leadership to guide AIM's next phase of growth. The Opportunity AIM is at a unique inflection point. We're seeking an exceptional leader to join Samantha and Devon on our C-level team and help shape the next era of one of the most impactful organizations in the EA ecosystem. With foundations established (including a strong leadership team and funding runway), we're ready to scale our influence dramatically and see many exciting pathways to do so. While the current leadership team has a default 2026 strategic plan, we are open to a new CEO proposing radical departures. This might include: * Proposing alternative ways to integrate or spin off existing or new programs * Deciding to spend more resources trialling more experimental programs, or double down on Charity Entrepreneurship * Expanding geographically or deepening impact in existing region