Why Are the Highly Educated So Liberal? • Hacker News Board

Re: Why Are the Highly Educated So Liberal?

#201

Post by vowelless » Fri, Jun 03, 2016, 10:09 PM UTC

mindcrime wrote: post #161

lake99 wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your post confuses me, no offense intended. Friedman and Hayek called themselves liberals, not conservatives. The American progressive movement co-opted the word "liberalism". Before that, they called themselves "progressives". Is that what you're looking for? Todd8's comment below confuses me for the same reason. Rawls could be considered to be on the US-left. The other people he mentioned, except Gross and Levitt,…

Your post confuses me, no offense intended. Hopefully vowelless won't take offense, because that's probably just a side-effect of how overloaded (and thus meaningless) words like "liberal" and "conservative" and "right" and "left" are in modern American politics. Modern "liberals" are more properly "progressives" (or something), the actual liberals are mostly people who call themselves "libertarian" and "conservative…

Thank you. You are absolutely right.

I conflated conservatism with libertarianism and liberalism with progressivism.

Re: Why Are the Highly Educated So Liberal?

#202

Post by ilaksh » Fri, Jun 03, 2016, 10:37 PM UTC

The short answer is 'watch Game of Thrones'.

Liberal means different things in different countries.

Generally speaking people's beliefs follow their group association rather than the other way. In many US groups this means adopting 'liberal' ideas.

There is also the history of conflict between religious traditions that are Judeo-Christian-Islamic and more pagan or Satanic belief systems.

Re: Why Are the Highly Educated So Liberal?

#203

Post by wahern » Fri, Jun 03, 2016, 11:13 PM UTC

mindcrime wrote: post #161

lake99 wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your post confuses me, no offense intended. Friedman and Hayek called themselves liberals, not conservatives. The American progressive movement co-opted the word "liberalism". Before that, they called themselves "progressives". Is that what you're looking for? Todd8's comment below confuses me for the same reason. Rawls could be considered to be on the US-left. The other people he mentioned, except Gross and Levitt,…

Your post confuses me, no offense intended. Hopefully vowelless won't take offense, because that's probably just a side-effect of how overloaded (and thus meaningless) words like "liberal" and "conservative" and "right" and "left" are in modern American politics. Modern "liberals" are more properly "progressives" (or something), the actual liberals are mostly people who call themselves "libertarian" and "conservative…

The vast majority of Americans lean "fiscally conservative, small government".

When Bernie Sanders won his mayoral election many years ago, the town council thought he was going to institute a Marxist-Leninist state. They were shocked when he streamlined budgets. (I'm not a Bernie supporter; it's just an anecdote I recently heard on the radio.)

Many consider San Francisco to be one of the most "liberal", "progressive" cities in the United States. But during the California fiscal crisis recently, at the depths of the national recession, San Francisco was the only major city in the state (IIRC) that kept a balanced budget the whole time. They did that by relying on savings (the city keeps billions stashed away for emergencies), and by rapidly instituting furloughs and budget cuts. This wasn't by fiat--all components of government, as well as the special interests, were on board. LA and other major cities couldn't accomplish that. And that's ignoring the rest of the country. Similarly, when Democrats obtained a super-majority in California, capable of overriding Republican tax and budget filibustering, they didn't open the flood gates of taxes and spending.

The only politicians in recent memory who flat-out stated that they didn't care about fiscal conservatism was Dick Cheney and a substantial minority of similarly-minded politicians and pundits, almost all dedicated Republicans. To quote Dick Cheney, "deficits don't matter".

Ignoring social issues, the divide in America isn't about fiscal conservatism and small government versus a gargantuan state. The conflict is over emphasis (social services vs military and police), and small percentage point changes in the taxation rate.

Re: Why Are the Highly Educated So Liberal?

#204

Post by capitalsigma » Fri, Jun 03, 2016, 11:22 PM UTC

vowelless wrote: post #75

This has always confused me. There are some rich texts based on beautiful rigor on the side of the conservatives like freidman and Hayek. Goldwater also approaches things in a very principled manner. Arthur brooks' latest book is similar. On the other than, I have not come across any liberal text, yet, that makes a good convincing case for liberalism. I would love to get some recommendations. I'm interested in princi…

I think it may be tough to find texts that self-identify as "progressive" because -- in my experience as a philosophy major at a good school -- most academic literature takes it for granted that you see value in progressive positions.

Re: Why Are the Highly Educated So Liberal?

#205

Post by coupdetaco » Fri, Jun 03, 2016, 11:42 PM UTC

fab13n wrote: post #72

I'm an upper-middle class, over-educated professional expert, and I'm strongly liberal for selfish reasons: mostly, I want to live in a climate of social peace, and would prefer to be surrounded by people who foster a mood of solidarity and benevolence, rather than a cut-throat and ever-worsening competitive mindset. So sure, one way is to protect myself and those I love behind a gated community. But that's pretty mu…

Natural laws are the same as God given laws

Re: Why Are the Highly Educated So Liberal?

#206

Post by dragonwriter » Fri, Jun 03, 2016, 11:45 PM UTC

rubyfan wrote: post #130

Kurtz79 wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I'm an upper-middle class, over-educated professional expert, and I'm strongly liberal for selfish reasons: mostly, I want to live in a climate of social peace, and would prefer to be surrounded by people who foster a mood of solidarity and benevolence, rather than a cut-throat and ever-worsening competitive mindset." That's mostly my rationale for being in favor of (moderate) wealth redistribution, which on surface…

Is resource redistribution the only way to solve income inequality? I always believed we weren't playing a zero sum game. It's likely that when we are all working for a living and prospering then we all prosper a little more. I don't believe that means someone rich has to lose a little more so someone poor can win.

> Is resource redistribution the only way to solve income inequality?

Yes.

> I always believed we weren't playing a zero sum game.

That's true, so a redistribution can result in a net gain (or loss) of aggregate experienced utility. But you can't change the outcomes resulting from the current system of allocating resources without changing the allocation.

Re: Why Are the Highly Educated So Liberal?

#207

Post by tim333 » Fri, Jun 03, 2016, 11:56 PM UTC

ArkyBeagle wrote: post #193

fab13n wrote: post #72

I'm an upper-middle class, over-educated professional expert, and I'm strongly liberal for selfish reasons: mostly, I want to live in a climate of social peace, and would prefer to be surrounded by people who foster a mood of solidarity and benevolence, rather than a cut-throat and ever-worsening competitive mindset. So sure, one way is to protect myself and those I love behind a gated community. But that's pretty mu…

If they're wrong ( and oh so many are ) , "Adam Smith's sycophants" have a fundamental reading comprehension problem. He's nominally a tepid-right, Virginia school economist, but Russ Roberts frames "Wealth of Nations" as a drill down of "Theory of Moral Sentiments". Smith spends barrels of ink decrying rents. Many, many people who espouse Smith just cherry-pick reinforcement from him. Now: having said that, I am no…

In practice altering the distribution of wealth and income doesn't usually involve taking from A and giving to B. It usually is more taking from the rich and spending the money on free education and the like. You can also put taxes on large estates, give subsidised houses / loans to the less well off and so on.

There used to be quite a lot of that between WW2 and Thatcher getting in in the UK with tax rates as high as 98%. The period of this song https://youtu.be/pzU2owPegHE?t=23s

Re: Why Are the Highly Educated So Liberal?

#208

Post by jedmeyers » Sat, Jun 04, 2016, 12:18 AM UTC

tim333 wrote: post #207

ArkyBeagle wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they're wrong ( and oh so many are ) , "Adam Smith's sycophants" have a fundamental reading comprehension problem. He's nominally a tepid-right, Virginia school economist, but Russ Roberts frames "Wealth of Nations" as a drill down of "Theory of Moral Sentiments". Smith spends barrels of ink decrying rents. Many, many people who espouse Smith just cherry-pick reinforcement from him. Now: having said that, I am no…

In practice altering the distribution of wealth and income doesn't usually involve taking from A and giving to B. It usually is more taking from the rich and spending the money on free education and the like. You can also put taxes on large estates, give subsidised houses / loans to the less well off and so on. There used to be quite a lot of that between WW2 and Thatcher getting in in the UK with tax rates as high a…

And also the period of this album https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FwfpcTYv7Ts&list=PL7sBCGkQNm...

'Exile' in the title is not a coincidence.

Re: Why Are the Highly Educated So Liberal?

#209

Post by Joof » Sat, Jun 04, 2016, 12:24 AM UTC

unlinker wrote: post #44

blowski wrote: post #18

And I guess the converse question which has vexed socialists for decades - why do so many of the poor vote for centre-right, business-friendly parties? For example, why did so many working class people vote for Thatcher in UK in the 1980s? Why are they not massively in favour of Jeremy Corbyn right now? I'm not saying it's irrational. But sometimes it's odd to hear people who need the government to subsidise their mi…

I guess they found out liberal economical policies lead to unemployment, and the poor loathe unemployment. By the way Corbyn is a very bad example. He's a walking train wreck.

Source for liberal policies leading to unemployment?

Re: Why Are the Highly Educated So Liberal?

#210

Post by metaphorm » Sat, Jun 04, 2016, 12:26 AM UTC

rubyfan wrote: post #130

Kurtz79 wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I'm an upper-middle class, over-educated professional expert, and I'm strongly liberal for selfish reasons: mostly, I want to live in a climate of social peace, and would prefer to be surrounded by people who foster a mood of solidarity and benevolence, rather than a cut-throat and ever-worsening competitive mindset." That's mostly my rationale for being in favor of (moderate) wealth redistribution, which on surface…

Is resource redistribution the only way to solve income inequality? I always believed we weren't playing a zero sum game. It's likely that when we are all working for a living and prospering then we all prosper a little more. I don't believe that means someone rich has to lose a little more so someone poor can win.

It doesn't particularly matter if the game is zero-sum or not because of the way money interacts with influence/power. Essentially it is a bidding war, so those with the most money will always command the most influence by way of being able to bid the most. It doesn't matter that others are still gaining in their monetary compensation. They are still suffering through a widening deficit in power and agency.