what’s the current state of analysis on whether the civil rights act of 1957 was actually net positive or negative for civil rights in hindsight? there are two possible stories one can tell, and at the time people were arguing about which is correct:
passing even a useless civil rights bill is a lot better than nothing because it sets a precedent that getting civil rights bills through the Senate is possible / makes the southern coalition no longer look invincible. this serves a useful coordination mechanism because people only want to support things that they think other people will support.
passing a useless civil rights bill is worse than no bill because it creates a false sense of progress and makes it feel like something was done even when nothing was. to the extent that the bill signals to people that getting civil rights bills through the Senate is possible, this is a false impression because the only reason the bill could get through was that it was watered down to uselessness.
this feels directly analogous to the question of whether we should accept very weak AI safety regulations today.
Some evidence for (2) is that before the 1957 act no civil rights legislation had been passed for 82 years[1], and after it three more civil rights acts were passed in the next 11 years, including the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which in my understanding is considered very significant.
there’s an exogenous factor, which is that the entire country was shifting leftward during the 50s and 60s. it’s plausible that the 1964 bill would have passed anyways without the 1957 bill, possibly even earlier
what’s the current state of analysis on whether the civil rights act of 1957 was actually net positive or negative for civil rights in hindsight? there are two possible stories one can tell, and at the time people were arguing about which is correct:
passing even a useless civil rights bill is a lot better than nothing because it sets a precedent that getting civil rights bills through the Senate is possible / makes the southern coalition no longer look invincible. this serves a useful coordination mechanism because people only want to support things that they think other people will support.
passing a useless civil rights bill is worse than no bill because it creates a false sense of progress and makes it feel like something was done even when nothing was. to the extent that the bill signals to people that getting civil rights bills through the Senate is possible, this is a false impression because the only reason the bill could get through was that it was watered down to uselessness.
this feels directly analogous to the question of whether we should accept very weak AI safety regulations today.
Some evidence for (2) is that before the 1957 act no civil rights legislation had been passed for 82 years[1], and after it three more civil rights acts were passed in the next 11 years, including the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which in my understanding is considered very significant.
Going off what’s listed in the wikipedia article on civil rights acts in the United States.
there’s an exogenous factor, which is that the entire country was shifting leftward during the 50s and 60s. it’s plausible that the 1964 bill would have passed anyways without the 1957 bill, possibly even earlier
Fair enough yeah. But at least (1)-style effects weren’t strong enough to prevent any significant legislation in the near future.