Feedback loops in political economy
On your grandparents' economic mobility, your political preferences, and why GDP growth from 20 or 30 years ago has electoral consequences right now
An enlightening paper on political attitudes in the United States reveals that zero-sum thinking has a deeper effect on many people's preferences than any conventional partisan alignment. It's a conclusion based upon survey data collected from a sample of more than 20,000 Americans, and the results are convincing.
■ Even more eye-opening is the observation that zero-sum thinking, which is quite convincingly related to economic conditions in one's youth, is also demonstrably related to previous generations' experience within a family. If your parents or grandparents (and maybe even great-grandparents) experienced economic mobility, there's probably an effect that shows up, measurably, in your attitudes today.
■ The research certainly helps to build a case for seeing economic growth and progress as an important pillar for what we historically called a "liberal" world order: One based on liberties and freedoms for all. Setting up false rivalries between groups (an exercise in zero-sum thinking) is a long-standing weapon of those who want to use power in bad ways.
■ It's also a mild case for supporting those programs, initiatives, and institutions that help young people to appreciate constructive and non-competitive activities in their youth. If our political attitudes in adulthood are partially formed by whether we see the economic pie as a thing that can grow or not, surely we are also formed by whether our recreational and developmental activities convince us to see everything as matchups between teams, one of which must lose in order for the other to win.
■ It's all quite insightful, and probably unexpectedly helpful in illuminating why some of the conventional assumptions about the two-party political system in the US seem to be falling apart before our eyes. Feedback loops can be very real -- and have very long periods.
