Why People Vote Against Redistributive Policies That Would Benefit Them (2021) | Hacker News Reader

Why People Vote Against Redistributive Policies That Would Benefit Them (2021)

thereader.mitpress.mit.edu

5 pointsfulafel19 comments

> In addition, priming respondents to think about topics that they dislike about the government (such as asking them about their opinions on lobbyists or the Wall Street bailout) lowers their trust in the government experimentally. This significantly lowers support for most redistribution policies and increases support for “private charity” over government policies as a better way to reduce inequality.

This is precisely how billionaire-controlled "charitable" foundations are going to undermine and replace democratically-elected governments, resulting in a new aristocracy/feudalism.

Theft is wrong, even if its the government stealing from someone else to benefit me.

You can disagree that it was theft, you can disagree that the theft was wrong; but others may not share your (or MIT's) understanding of the situation. Are those too ignorant to help, or should we listen to them?

Too ignorant. Since property rights are crated by state and the state is their guarantor and enforcer it can't steal by definition.

The state does not create or grant rights. Free people have rights, quite apart from any government. The US Constitution recognizes rights we already have and constitutes a government whose primary purpose is to protect those rights.

Most of the US Constitution is about trying to make sure that the government does not infringe on these rights.

It's a constant struggle.

> During the time men live without a common power to keep them all in awe, they are in that conditions called war; and such a war, as if of every man, against every man.

> To this war of every man against every man, this also in consequent; that nothing can be unjust. The notions of right and wrong, justice and injustice have there no place. Where there is no common power, there is no law, where no law, no injustice. Force, and fraud, are in war the cardinal virtues.

> No arts; no letters; no society; and which is worst of all, continual fear, and danger of violent death: and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short.

Thomas Hobbes, "Leviathan"

The 20th century is a stark repudiation of hobbes.

How so?

It was the countries that put the state first that killed millions of people - the fascists in Germany and Italy, the communists in Russia and China, and so on. Who stood up to them?

It would be a much darker world without the one major country that is based on the idea that the government serves at the pleasure of the people, to protect the rights that they are naturally born with, and that the government has no other purpose than that.

> It was the countries that put the state first that killed millions of people - the fascists in Germany and Italy, the communists in Russia and China, and so on. Who stood up to them?

This is a rather bizarre, ahistorical interpretation, because the communist Soviet Union fought against Germany in WW2 and indeed was an ally of the US. Likewise with communist China against Japan in WW2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sino-American_Cooperative_Orga...

In any case, I didn't intend to defend the whole of Hobbes's Leviathan. But I don't think there's any reason to believe that anarchy ("the state of nature") is any better. And remember that Leviathan was written during the English Civil War.

I quote Thomas Jefferson:

> all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,

The State creates nothing; it acts as an agent to help citizens act in concert to secure their natural rights.

> endowed by their Creator

1) This is meaningless to atheists.

2) On the other hand, to Christians: “Truly, I say to you, only with difficulty will a rich person enter the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 19:23)

Of course Jefferson himself was a wealthy landowner and slaveholder.

By the way, the "founders" stole most of their ideas from British philosopher John Locke.

You may not have any Creator beyond your parents; does that mean you haven't the same right to pursue your own will that anyone else has?

200 years later is still bullshit. Inspiring bullshit, but bullshit nonetheless. A rights without power to enforce them are imaginary.

I would so much love to see a society that can practice and refine governance, that can find ways to boost & help it's peoples. Investing in society is obviously good; it takes all kinds of somewhat marginal forms of existence & makes them more productive, useful, informed & involved civic people. Society has to believe in itself, and has to work for it's whole, to some degree.

But disbelief & ranchor & suspicion spread more broadly. Also, when we go legislate & govern, too often we don't re-assess, review, & re-direct our efforts; maintaining efficacy in our efforts to improve has to be iterative. But right now it feels like doing anything pro-social is hard to make happen.

Wealth for the lower classes was created by technology trickling down.

>> Second, “experts” appear to be mistrusted more and more. Economists are no exception.

Economists never get anything right. If they would they'd be rich from trading securities.

This was a USA specific book.

Low trust in government seems to be a prime factor in the vicious cycle.

The headline itself is ridiculously biased. Lots of people don't belive more socialism (or however you want to define it) benefits them. Luckily everyone isn't ignorant enough to let the government bribe them with their own money, even if it's called a "benefit".

(2021)

“evil leftist commie scum”

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