Though leftism is diverse, a common thread is a concern with equality. This makes it in part an ideology of status, with political programmes that seek to eliminate status differences or moderate their impact. This is one reason leftists remain concerned with income inequality long after absolute poverty has been eliminated, try to obstruct institutions that reproduce status differences (eg private schools), and favour anti-discrimination and affirmative action laws for groups that have historically had low status.
Almost everyone is status-conscious to some extent, but levels of concern with it vary a lot. Politically, I suspect that people with relatively high levels of status concerns are disproportionately attracted to leftism and to hierarchical conservatism (in Australia, conservatism tends to be populist, but in countries with more aristocratic traditions status-oriented individuals could go left or right). On this theory, those with relatively low levels of status concern would be disproportionately on the liberal/libertarian right, in which individual freedom is prized – who cares what other people think, I am going to do what I want, either alone or with like-minded people.
This paper by Rafael Di Tella, John Haisken-De New, and Robert MacCulloch, using German panel study data, puts these theories to the test. It does so by seeing how supporters of German left and right-wing parties vary in their subjective well-being after changes in occupational status. It finds that left-wingers gain far more lasting benefit from upward shifts in occupational status than do their right-wing countrymen (and women, as the lefties would insist). This is consistent with the theory that leftists are more concerned with status. Whether it is consistent with egalitarianism is another matter; this depends on where the leftists were in the status hierarchy to begin with.
Right-wingers, by contrast, gain more from increases in income (in fact, the subjective well-being of leftists seem to adapt entirely to gains in income, perhaps because in left-wing sub-cultures people have to at least pretend not to be concerned with money). Again, this is consistent with the theory – as money is fungible, it can be put towards a wide range of possible activities, some of which may be status-enhancing in the conventional sense, but others of which may be very individual in in their value, as liberals/libertarians would defend.
In their endorsement of income redistribution, status-oriented leftists are perhaps trying to disrupt a rival status system to protect the importance of their occupation-based hierarchies. It would help explain why they heap scorn on those who lack occupational status and merely have money, which they spend on plasma TVs to put in their McMansions. It would help explain why they are so outraged by full-fee places at universities, which they think let people into the occupational hierarchy system based on money.
Hat tip: Will Wilkinson.
Update: Jason Soon has similar thoughts.
Andrew Norton 
Interesting study.
You are arguing (if I understand you correctly) that my support for income redistribution indicates I am intensely status conscious, and don’t want other people (rich people) to have more status than me?
I might respond by saying that ‘egalitarians’ in advanced countries tend to fall into two camps: people who want to punish the rich, and people who want to help the poor. The former are generally very anti-business, and favour IR regulation as a core means of redistribution (punish those evil exploitative bosses!). They also tend to support public policies like ‘free’ higher ed that primarily benefit the educated middle class and their children. I think your case could apply to people who dislike the rich per se, but does it apply to me?
I accept your point that absolute poverty is confined to (at most) 0.5% or so of Australians (homeless people, I would argue, and some indigenous people). But anyone who has seen both sides of the fence knows there is a big difference between $15,000/year and $75,000/year, particularly if you have kids. To put it in economic terms, I would argue (relatively) poor people will get more utility from an additional dollar than (relatively) well off people, so maximising total social welfare can justify some level of redistribution. I would also make the point that children born into low income households face a fundamental disadvantage from an ‘equality of opportunity’ perspective (a liberal value last time I checked) and redistribution to such households can be justified on those grounds as well. I don’t think it requires intense status consciousness to take such views.
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“I don’t think it requires intense status consciousness to take such views.”
No, it doesn’t. These findings (as with social science generally) are about tendencies; they don’t explain every case.
I think we should be cautious, too, about extrapolating too confidently from German data. As an old society, perhaps traditional hierarchical views are more powerful than they would be here.
Also, my impression is that liberal ideas are relatively weak in Germany compared to Anglo-Saxon countries, which would affect my interpretation of right-wing attitudes.
But with these caveats (and more) I thought this research was interesting in showing patterns consistent with ideological assumptions, and with other research showing that personality and sociological factors drive underlying political orientations.
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Ouch! Left/Right! I argue that reasoning, good-hearted folk from left and right, whether in politics, economics or religion are now natural allies, and use the (unsatisfactory) labels sophisticates and barbarians.
So, I’m on the left, you’re on the right, but we are probably both fans of Edmund Burke, and we both want the best outcomes for “everyone”, not just our own self, or our own clique. We’ll argue like cats and dogs about how to achieve it tho!
My guess is our main disagreement might be in Maggie Thatcher’s “There is no such thing as society (just individuals)” remark.
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Dave, just on a point of detail regarding Margaret Thatcher, she never argued that there is no such thing as society, that is an out of context remark from an off-the-cuff interview that lefties love to quote to indicate that you have missed the point of the Thatcher agenda and you can’t think honestly and critically about her aims and her achievements.
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Rafe: Yep, the Maggie off-the-cuff remark was from “Woman’s Own” 1987-10-31, which I’ll try and quote in context – and as a lefty, I DO love quoting it.:
* “And, you know, there’s no such thing as society. There are individual men and women and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look after themselves first.”
The look-after-number-one attitude is even more of a red rag to a red-ragger (and most theists).
I assume you’ll think that she’d be more careful with the Sunday Times than Women’s Own. (1981-05-03):
* “Economics are the method; the object is to change the heart and soul”.
I’d imagine thinking libertarians would find that AIM objectionable! What? Changing the soul of another?!?
Mind you, Maggie was SPOT ON when she spoke to the US Bar Association in 1985
* We must try to find ways to starve the terrorist and the hijacker of the oxygen of publicity on which they depend
It’s a pity the Shrub and JWH don’t think about this tactic!
And when she continued at the Am Bar Assoc making many appreciative references about Edmund Burke, I can only applaud. Howard praises Burke too, but probably wants to treat the Sheriffs of Bristol letter as encouraging terrorism and have it censored.
Anyway, this lefty reckons that while the far-gone Libertarians (social darwinists) have a point, they haven’t heard of “group fitness”, i.e. the collective. It’s over the importance of group fitness over individual fitness that left and right have the greatest disagreements.
Oh, and anyway Rafe, from your blog, if you read the “natural allies” post I referred to, we’d probably have a quite civilized argument, as we don’t disagree about motives, just methods. Ooh, that horrible lefty term “dialectic”!
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“Though leftism is diverse, a common thread is a concern with equality” – as a moral thing, not as a status thing.
Are you trying to perpetuate the myth that the left “wants to make everybody equal”? People on the left talk mainly talk about equality of opportunity, which is about not being held back, denied the important opportunities to make your way in life because those opportunities have been monopolised by those with advantages given to them by virtue of having been born into wealth.
I would need to see much, much better evidence than you provide (none) to be convinced that wealthy, right-wingers in Australia aren’t just as interested in status as everyone else. Walk around Julie Bishop’s electorate – look at the houses and gardens (this isn’t “low-maintenance, lock-up-and-leave” territory: the gardener will still come while they’re in their cottages at Eagle Bay or wherever. Status there is displayed with Maseratis, rather than Monaros, as where I live).
I think one of the differences between the left and right is that the right is happy to let the free-market, (and inherited), chips fall where they may – who cares if some are hyper-wealthy while others are poor. That situation offends me – on a global as well as local level. I guess I picked up an idea of “the brotherhood of man” somewhere, which means you don’t enjoy having a lot if others don’t have enough. It doesn’t feel right – it feels mean.
In some important sense we’re all in this together, and it’s not right to encourage a situation where some people will come to live, either by being too poor, or too rich, cut off from the general community.
Nope, leftism isn’t a status thing, it’s a moral thing.
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I don’t know about the categorisation of people as leftists or rightists – although the few comments on this post might indicate otherwise, I suspect that a great bulk of the population wouldn’t categorise themselves as left or right – many people might describe themselves as agreeing/disgreeing with different kinds of policies – and many people hold ideas that could be described as eclectic mixtures of left and right.
(As long-time readers would know, I think the labels left and right are not very useful nor descriptive as each covers such a huge range of ideas that it’s hardly useful.)
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Isn’t a concern with greater equality often/sometimes connected with a conception (whether based on evidence or intuition) that people are happier in a society in which there is greater equality – ie, individuals are better off in a society with greater equality? Unless I’ve missed something, I think you forgot to mention this in your post Andrew.
I feel that “greater equality” can be motivated by impressions of what is fair or how the world should be, eg the discussion over Allan Moss’ $33M (I think) salary.
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“I think one of the differences between the left and right is that the right is happy to let the free-market, (and inherited), chips fall where they may – who cares if some are hyper-wealthy while others are poor. That situation offends me – on a global as well as local level. I guess I picked up an idea of “the brotherhood of man” somewhere, which means you don’t enjoy having a lot if others don’t have enough. It doesn’t feel right – it feels mean.”
Russell – just a small observation – you and I are hyperwealthy compared to many people in the world, eg those who eek a living scavenging the rubbish dumps in The Phillippines for goods to sell. I think that your description of the differences between the right and left doesn’t ring true and is a bit of a broad emotional swathe, if I may say so.
(PS: a few years ago I realised that one of the ideas underpinning my political ideas was that it would be great if people could have as many opportunities in life as possible – is this the same as equality of opportunity? In many ways I’m a radical individualist who thinks that it is essential that one takes other people’s needs into account. Does that fall neatly into a category?)
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“Isn’t a concern with greater equality often/sometimes connected with a conception (whether based on evidence or intuition) that people are happier in a society in which there is greater equality”.
Sacha – I wrote a post on that topic earlier this year. The main point I made was that on the face of it, to use Will Wilkinson’s term, these things are ‘ideologically mediated’ – for people with leftist-orientations more social equality may add to happiness, but it does not appear to be true of others.
But there are chicken and egg problems here; is the concern with equality because of leftism, or is leftism the result of concern with equality? High levels of preoccupation with status could come from personality factors, from personal experience (eg witnessing or experiencing some humiliation), or from social conformity (with family or peers).
I’m inclined to think that Moss is overpaid, but also that this if this is a problem it is one for Macquarie Bank’s shareholders, rather than an instance of general unfairness. But do I think this because I am naturally not very concerned with status, or because I was socialised against feeling envy, or because having read liberal philosophy for many years I do not want to block the results of free agreements between other people?
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Andrew – If leftists support “political programmes that seek to eliminate status differences or moderate their impact” then the best way to reduce the left’s opposition to free markets would be to sever the link between income and status.
If you wanted to stir up opposition to markets you’d do what Peter Saunders does and argue that income reflects merit.
Hayek had a clear position on this. He wrote:
“in our society personal esteem and material success are much too closely bound together. We ought to be much more aware that if we regard a man as entitled to a high material reward that in itself does not necessarily entitle him to high esteem.”
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I hadn’t read that post, Andrew – thanks for the link.
To me, “inequality” is one of those slippery concepts which is difficult to obtain a good grasp of. For example, in dealing with Allan Moss’ income, or comparatively much smaller incomes of, say, $1M-$2M, it’s hard to know where to start thinking about it. Some work colleagues mentioned to me that these large amounts of income were ridiculous – no-one’s worth that much, and I replied that it seemed to me that the salaries were, in general, the result of “supply and demand” factors. The same factors essentially leading to the salaries in the company I work for (unfortunately a little less than $1M).
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Russell
You do realise ‘equality of opportunity’ was one of the core tenets of LIBERAL thought?
It is not a ‘left-wing’ value in any meaningful sense of the term. I would argue the thing that distinguishes left from right (in economic terms, anyway) is the view that equality of opportunity is insufficient. Practically no-one in Australia (so far as I am aware) disagrees with the concept of equality of opportunity. If that is what defines the left, the majority of CIS staff would be on the left!
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I’m not 100% convinced it works that way. Envy of Allan Moss’s income can be dismissed in two ways: either you don’t envy the amount of money he makes because income differences (rather than status per se) don’t matter to you (i.e. he can’t buy taste) or because his enhanced wealth can’t buy him influence (i.e. macbanks continued failure to get the gig for selling Telstra shares).
Both approaches, to me, seem like different ways of salving the conscience – making one feel better about yourself for your relative failure in society to emulate his success. I’d find it hard to believe that people of the right aren’t showing a kind of envy when they are displaying their begrudging respect for his abilities to generate money.
Status can also be measured along many different axes, it can be generated if you are a dirt poor musician or actor who has (for example) integrity in your choice of projects and receive a certain amount of notoriety. This is a hierarchy of merit, not of money.
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Don – Though it seems to be mainly the left that has an operating assumption that the link between money and status is a strong one; whether or not Pete said that I don’t think it is a necessary premise of any of his arguments.
I can’t, of the top of my head, think of research that directly addresses the issue of wealth and status; the long tradition of looking down on the ‘nouveau riche’ suggests that if money is necessary part of high status is not sufficient in itself.
There are quite a few surveys (eg this one I discussed last year) that find that money is not a top priority for most individuals, but this could just mean that status is not a top priority either. Being valued by friends and peers is probably a more important part of well-being than standing in the broader society.
The trouble with suggestions like the one you make is that we have little idea what our starting point is, so it is hard to know if there has been any movement.
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Sacha – on happiness and status:
The Economist had a major theme at Christmas on happiness, and made the comment that many “aspirationals” are made UNhappy by relative status – i.e. I’m made happy by having a better car/house/phone than my neighbor, and unhappy if someone else has more, regardless of their absolute quality of life, possessions etc.
e.g. I might have a mercedes, but I’m unhappy if my neighbor has a ferrari.
So (and addressing andrew’s point), it seems voters drawn to the right of politics can have more hang-ups about both status and income than the lefties.
After all, monetary transactions tend to be zero-sum, so the only way (to this lefty) of decreasing the misery of the bottom is to shift wealth away from the top. This lefty sees high status/wealth as a problem of misallocation of resources when others are in miserable conditions. If everyone had a decent standard of living, and we were running a sustainable society, why should I care if someone has a lamborghini if everyone else has only has a functional small sedan?
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Oops – forgot to mention a deutsche bank reports on countries with happy capitalism, April 25 2007, PDF here: They are characterised by an array of commonalities such as low unemployment, a high education level, a high employment rate of older people and extensive economic freedom.
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“monetary transactions tend to be zero-sum,”
Somehow I think Dave doesn’t know much about economics….
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Yep, I’m not an economist, but I was only talking about the money side. In an ideal world, with perfect (or even reasonable) knowledge on both sides of the transaction, it wouldn’t be zero sum! For example, I have little problem with the original stock markets in coffee shops a couple of centuries back, which I consider reasonable capitalism (although working conditions were bad), but see dangers in speculation when there is patently overexpectation and imperfect knowledge.
i.e. Free-market economics, in my opinion, has the potential to be win-win, is usually “You lose so I can win”, or (e.g. crashes) lose-lose. I’m big on things like SarbOx because they should help things be more stable, and better for everyone.
And as for most derivatives (and I did some R&D work for an economist on options pricing using a trinomial rather than binomial algorithm), I think they skew things away from what capitalism should be, putting your money where your mouth is and your a…. on the line without a pillow.
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Oops, by original coffee shops I meant “I’m Lord Muck with lotsa money but inbred and stupid, you are a cash-strapped manufacturer with an innovative idea, let’s word together”, not the SouthSea bubble times.
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Dave – I still don’t really understand what you mean. Zero-sum means that one person’s loss is equal to another person’s gain. If the tax man takes $100 from me and gives it to you then this is a zero-sum transaction, you gain $100 and I lose $100. However, in a market transaction both parties will normally consider themselves to be better off – win-win rather than zero-sum.
Even Macquarie Bank presumably believes that it is better off paying Alan Moss $30 million than not having him work for them.
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Andrew: You are correct, but the “normally consider” involves intangibles. I was only talking about the short money. Even if you give a beggar on the street $100 dollars, that’s the zero sum bit (total $ in the game remains the same), but the beggar with food in his belly, and you with a good feeling in your heart gives each of you a “win”.
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“After all, monetary transactions tend to be zero-sum, so the only way (to this lefty) of decreasing the misery of the bottom is to shift wealth away from the top. ”
I also don’t understand this nor your further comments, Dave. Unless the transaction is coerced, people probably wouldn’t engage in a transaction unless it was mutually beneficial. The second phrase in the sentence I’ve quoted is, I would contend, not correct – one can create more goods (food, houses, whatever) and people at the “bottom” of the pile can benefit without wealth being shifted from the people at the “top”.
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“Oops, by original coffee shops I meant “I’m Lord Muck with lotsa money but inbred and stupid, you are a cash-strapped manufacturer with an innovative idea, let’s word together”, not the SouthSea bubble times.”
Great. We have another “I’m in favour of people doing as they please, so long as they don’t do anything I don’t like” kind of ‘liberal’ on the blog.
“And as for most derivatives … I think they skew things away from what capitalism should be, putting your money where your mouth is and your a…. on the line without a pillow.”
How?
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“If the tax man takes $100 from me and gives it to you then this is a zero-sum transaction, you gain $100 and I lose $100.”
An economist might think that, but only because they simplify and decontextualise to make their propositions seem obviously true, when they aren’t. I might think it’s a zero-sum game for me if my $100 became some wealthy property speculator’s negative gearing tax write-off. But if the $100 went to someone on an income lower than mine, struggling to raise kids then I’m happy for them to have the $100 – the taxman has just facilitated the transfer. They got the $100 and I’m happy the money was ‘spent’ the way I wanted.
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I’m not a big fan of the study, since it’s not clear to me that they’ve separated status from permanent income. In that event, you’d get the same results if left-wingers had lower discount rates.
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“If the tax man takes $100 from me and gives it to you then this is a zero-sum transaction, you gain $100 and I lose $100.”
An economist might think that …
Uh, no actually. An economist would ask who values the money more. Differing marginal utilities of income can make redistribution a positive sum game in welfare terms.
That’s the traditional economic justification for redistribution from rich to poor, dating back to John Stuart Mill in the 1830s and formailised by Marshall in the 1880s. The poor get more happiness from getting an extra dollar than the rich lose by giving the dollar up.
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How do you know?
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“An economist would ask who values the money more.”
What a chilling statement. Do you think Oxfam should use it as the slogan for their FairTrade campaigns: “FairTrade Coffee – who values the money more?”
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Russell, why is that chilling? Isn’t it a straightforward observation that an amount of money gained or lost will be valued differently by different people?
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Sacha – it’s chilling because “the traditional economic justification for redistribution from rich to poor …. The poor get more happiness from getting an extra dollar than the rich lose by giving the dollar up” seems such a wrong way of looking at one’s moral obligation not to hoard too much for yourself when others don’t have enough.
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‘Morality’ is a highly relative and subjective concept, Russell.
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Morality’ is a highly relative and subjective concept, Russell.”
Yes, but much more interesting than money.
If you type Eureka Street into Google you will go to the new issue where everyone will want to read Clive Hamilton’s latest article (actually a version of a talk to be given tomorrow – Eureka Street keeps you more than up-to-date) where he says:
“we are not here to try to live a happy life but a meaningful one.” How do economists measure meaning?
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I’m sorry – who’s to say why “we are here”? I’m here as my mum gave birth to me and I’m still alive. Beyond that, it’s as slippery as a moss covered walkway in a rainforest.
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“who’s to say why “we are here”? ” well, just about everybody has a shot at it, Sacha. Then you kind of lead on to …. so this is what we should do.
“I’m here as my mum gave birth to me and I’m still alive.” isn’t much of a conversation starter.
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And depending how the tax is levied you might have a net reduction in welfare — e.g. the neurosurgeon who takes a day off to paper the parlour, because his marginal tax rate is high enough that that’s cheaper than paying someone to do it. (is that what’s referred to as ‘deadweight loss’?)
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As far as can be proven, we are here by accident. It follows what we do is our business.
Hamilton is a religious fundamentalist on a crusade. If you share his religion, you’ll listen. If not, you won’t.
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Meaning is inherently subjective. A life based on the sort of narcissistic navel gazing Buddhism promoted by Hamilton and the Dalai Lama has little meaning to me.
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. A life based on the sort of narcissistic navel gazing Buddhism promoted by Hamilton and the Dalai Lama has little meaning to me.
Lol!! Imagine Dalai Clive donning the Dalai L dress code. At least he wouldn’t have to worry about buying a winter coat thinking he was too cumsumerist. You gotta laugh.
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Dalai Clive is even better than Julia Chavez. I was just trying to lure Andrew to Eureka Street – right-wingers find Clive irresistible.
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Eureka Street – combining the Catholic Church and leftism, two traditional opponents of liberalism! I read Clive’s newpaper on commercialisation yesterday. That’s enough of him for this week.
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I didn’t know about Will Wilkinson’s website before, Andrew – thanks for the link.
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Russell
Clive is a gift that keeps on giving. He’s like a slot machine that never stops dispensing coins. Whichever way it turns you hit the jackpot.
Even the OZ editorial today has given him a good serve saying the reason they didn’t review his book was that it was below scratch….. OUCH!!!!
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,21900771-7583,00.html
As I said at Catallaxy, Dalai Clive these days is the politcal version of Where’s Waldo. Everywhere you turn here’s there on every page.
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Where’s Waldo ? Very high-class comix you right-wingers give your children.
Why go to The Australian when you can read John Button’s review of Clive’s book in the very same latest Eureka Street?
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I like “Where’s Osama” myself.
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“In the battle between utopians and realists, my vote always goes to the former” guess who? you just need to type into Google “New Left Review” – OK, so you won’t go there, it’s prolific Clive again – maybe The Australia Institute employs ghost writers for him. I liked this:
“Appealing to the idea of ‘revealed preference’, free-market economists argue that if individuals do not make environmentally benign decisions in the marketplace then they do not really care about the environment, no matter how much concern they might express in opinion surveys or over the dinner table. Monbiot too seems to judge us by our decisions in the marketplace. However, it is quite consistent for a person who does not opt to buy green electricity to vote for a party that promises to compel us all to buy it. Insisting on a collective response to a collective problem is far more politically practical and environmentally responsible than a politics of guilt.”
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Russell – why not just give us the link?
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So Clive is irresistable to right-wingers ?
Sinclair – I would make the link if it were easy to do it – like it is at LP ….. next time I’ll Google WordPress and Links and find the instructions.
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