The Central Moral Dilemma of the Left

And why it makes their long-term failure inevitable.

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The term “Left” as a means of categorizing political ideologies is generally thought to have arisen out of the French Revolution, one of the pivotal events of the modern era. While many claim that the terms “Left” and “Right” have no useful meaning, I disagree. Almost all parties on the Left have common moral and political assumptions, and those common assumptions make the term “Left” very useful.

For over 200 years since the French Revolution, various Left-of-Center ideologies have sprung up and rose to prominence. Almost all of them faded back into the history books. Despite this, almost all of those ideologies shared a Central Moral Dilemma at the core of their worldview. That Central Moral Dilemma exists to this day, and if supporters of Left-of-Center ideologies do not confront that dilemma honestly, their support in democratic elections will continue to fade.

The Central Moral Dilemma of Left-of-Center ideologies is an irresolvable moral conflict between:

1. What the Left deems to be their prime moral goal (Equality), and:

2. What the Left has actually achieved and what it can possibly achieve in the material world.

The means by which supporters of Left-of-Center ideologies “resolve” the conflict is to ignore Results and clutch more tightly to their moral goal. This tactic, however, does not resolve the dilemma, it merely evades the dilemma.

This evasion of the dilemma only further undermines their credibility with voters who do not subscribe to their ideologies. Hence, the dead end that Left-of-Center ideologies are approaching throughout the wealthy Western world.

Focus on Results

At one time, I was a fervent supporter of Left-of-Center ideologies. Over time, however, I noticed a massive gap between:

• the stated goals and

• the actual outcome in the real world.

After years of deep thought about the issue, I came to the conclusion that I cannot support a worldview that cannot produce results in the real world no matter how morally satisfying that worldview is.

I know that this article will be very difficult for some readers to absorb or even read. I am sure that many of my Left-of-Center readers will unsubscribe because of this article.

Fine.

The time has come for everyone who subscribes to Left-of-Center ideologies to stare into the abyss and admit the failure of their worldview to achieve the desired outcome.

Ideologies are beautiful systems of thought that encourage individuals to ignore the faulty assumptions upon which those beliefs are built. Ideologies also wrap those beliefs in morality that individuals find comfortable and satisfying. Ideologies provide meaning and social identify to many of its followers. So ideologies provide psychological benefits even when they fail to achieve their goals.

But in the end, it is Results that matter.

If you care more about your beliefs than the results of implementing those beliefs on society, then you are being selfish not moral. Because it is results that affect people, not intentions.

If you do not care about results, then you do not care about people. You only care about your own ideas.

There is an alternative

I want all my Left-of-Center readers (and everyone else for that matter) to know that there is an alternative, and it is not conservatism. Unfortunately, many supporters of Left-of-Center ideologies have a binary view of the world where only their ideology and “immoral and uncaring” conservative ideologies are the only two options.

I am here to tell you that there is an alternative…

A key point of my Substack and book series is to argue for a Progress-based perspective that is both radical and pragmatic.

The Progress-based perspective is based on:

1. Promoting long-term widely shared economic growth (among both wealthy nations and developing nations). I call this “Progress,” and I wrote two books about the topic.

2. Promoting a prosperous working class.

3. Promoting a clear pathway that enables youths from low-income families to enter that prosperous working class. I call the last two points “Upward Mobility,” and I wrote a third book on the topic.

4. Focusing relentless on Results.

I have also written about the above in dozens of articles, so I will not not into detail here. I will state that, as opposed to Equality, these goals:

• Are achievable, and they

• Will offer far more material benefits to the working class, poor, racial minorities, women and developing nations than current policies of the Left (or the Right).

So now that I have explained the alternative, let’s get on to understanding the Central Moral Dilemma of Left-of-Center ideologies…

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See also my other articles and podcasts on Ideology:

• Where do ideologies come from?

• Why neither the Left nor the Right have solutions

• Radical ideologies feast on mental disorders

• Why Ideologies Threaten Progress (Part 1 of 3-part podcast series)

• Why neither the Left nor the Right have solutions

• Why ideologies fail (podcast)

• Descent into a man-made Hell: Understanding modern Totalitarianism

• Why the Left endures

• Were Hitler and the National Socialists actually Socialist?

• The Left has hit a historic dead-end

• The Rebirth of the Totalitarian Left in the 21st Century

• The dangers of Soft Totalitarianism

• more

You might also be interested in reading my “From Poverty to Progress” book series:

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Core Moral Assumptions of the Left

Virtually all Left-of-Center ideologies are based to a large extent on the following assumptions:

1. The quest for Equality is the prime moral goal.
   A state of Equality is a sign of a just society. A state of Inequality is a sign of an unjust society.

2. But everywhere in material reality, one sees rampant Inequality.

3. Those inequalities are because someone (or some institution) did something bad to the less fortunate who have less. Those bad actions may have been in the past, or they might be in the present.

4. It is the moral duty of all caring people to take a stand against that Inequality and rectify it, by

5. Using the power of the government to create a state of Equality, or, at the very least, make important strides towards that goal within our lifetime.

6. The morality of a person should largely be judged by the extent to which that person publicly embraces the above principles.

7. Because all the above is self-evident, anyone who does not publicly embrace the above principles is either uninformed, ignorant, immoral, corrupt, or stupid. An intelligent, informed, and moral person could not possibly have a fundamentally different viewpoint.

The key assumption is the sixth: Left-of-Center ideologies concatenate morality with the identification of problems, goals, and the means to achieve those goals. This means that those who adopt Left-of-Center ideologies typically accept it as a key part of their moral identity. It makes them a good person in their own mind.

So the above list are not just empirical assumptions that can be disproven by evidence, argumentation, observations, or experimentation in reality. The above are moral arguments more akin to a religious faith. One either upholds that faith or one does not.

Different flavors of Left-of-Center ideology

To be clear, there are vast differences among Left-of-Center ideologies. Many of them have very negative opinions of each other. Acknowledging that virtually all Left-of-Center ideologies have common assumptions does not mean that they are all identical. In fact, there is a huge variety of Left-of-Center ideologies.

Among the most important differences between Left-of-Center ideologies are:

• Which type of Inequality a specific Left-of-Center ideology focus on (income, wealth, power, class, race, gender, class, sexuality, etc)

• The means by which supporters should change society:

  • Moral suasion

  • Education

  • Voting

  • Street protests

  • Violence

  • Revolution

• The exact policies that the government should implement in order to establish the desired state of Equality.

• Different viewpoints as to how fast those policies should be implemented and how wiling to compromise with others supporters should be. This is typically the biggest difference among supporters of Left-of-Center ideologies.

I also admit that Anarchists do not want to use the power of government to achieve Equality and that Green focuses more on the divide between humanity and the natural environment. But both ideologies have enough in common with other Left-of-Center ideologies that I think that they should be included in the category.

The Center-Left

Rather than explain all their policies and why they cannot succeed, let me go into more detail on the most important Left-of-Center ideologies in the wealthy Western world. The first major sub-category is the Center-Left.

By Center-Left, I mean:

• Social Democratic parties, plus many Social Liberal parties in Europe

• Labor parties in the Anglo world (UK, Australia and New Zealand)

• Democratic and Liberal parties in North America.

Typically, the Center-Left accepts the constraints of democratic governance, non-violence, and some form of market-based economics. The Center-Left favors parliamentary reform to create gradually greater Equality over time via:

• Increased spending on social programs, such as education, medical care, pensions, and poverty relief.

• Regulations to constrain the selfish behavior of corporations

• Taxes on the wealthy

• Expansion of government-protected rights

• Educating people, particularly young people, as to the injustices and inequalities in society and the necessity of fighting against them.

The implicit assumption is that gradually increasing all the above through legislation will gradually move society to greater and greater levels of Equality. This constant expansion of the above over the last 60 years is the output of a familiar cycle. The Center-Left:

1. Identifies a specific inequality that exists in society

2. Campaigns against those inequalities as immoral

3. Says that they have policies that will address the problem

4. (if they win the election) Implements one or more of the above policies.

5. But then the results are still rampant inequality in the domain they campaigned against.

The Results of the Center-Left

In terms of inputs (i.e. resources deployed), these Center-Left policies has been a spectacular success. Since World War II, there has been a spectacular increase in the percentage of GDP that has been devoted to government social spending. In addition to the increased spending in the graphic below is the sizable increase in regulations and government spending on education.

In terms of the Results in creating Equality, however, these massive deployment of societal resources has been an unmitigated failure.

This article has already gotten long, so I will not prove that substantial Inequalities still exist (and it is not clear that they have been reduced since the post-WW2 era), instead I will merely state the obvious fact that supporters of Left-of-Center ideologies believe that:

• Massive inequalities exist in all these societies.

• The Inequality problem is getting worse, not better (despite the massive deployment of societal resources to solve the problem).

The problem is that all these policies have failed to achieve a state of Equality despite being in existence for generations. So by the Left’s own standards, these policies are a failure.

And yet, the Center-Left views the failure of their policies as proof of the need to accelerate those failed policies. The idea that their policies can never achieve the desired result apparently does not occur to them.

As an aside, I will point out that this massive deployment of societal resources has dramatically increased the material standard of living of retirees in both income and health care. This has possibly created greater equality among retirees, but it has also created greater inequality between generations.

The Center-Left assumes economic growth

In practice, Center-Left policies involve funneling a substantial portion of the benefits of economic growth into social spending, regulations, and education. The fundamental problem is that the Center-Left:

• Assumes economic growth from a capitalist economy (without really understanding the necessary foundations for that growth)

• Has no means to create economic growth that is consistent with their worldview (i.e. the revenues are dependent upon capitalism)

• Ignores that many of their policies are actually sabotaging the economic growth that the revenues for these social policies are dependent upon.

For many decades, this did not seem like much of a problem, but since 2007 per capita growth in GDP has stalled in many wealthy, Western nations. As of 2024, the European economy has essentially not recovered from the economic recession of 2007. This 17-year period of essentially zero economic growth is longer than the Great Depression of the 1930s.

In addition, Canada has seen virtually no economic growth since 2011. Japan, once the Asian nation that most embodied economic dynamism, has seen very little growth since 1995. Moreover, future economic prospects in Canada, Japan, and Europe do not look any better than in the recent past.

This economic stagnation means that tax revenue has stopped increasing, leaving no extra funding for Center-Left redistributive social policies. It is not clear that governments can increase spending on social programs. Most wealthy Western nations have government expenditures that reach or exceed 50% of their total GDP. The French government accounts for 62% of the country’s GDP, Italy spends 57%, Germany 51%, and the UK 50% of their respective GDPs. Only Ireland at 29% and Switzerland at 36% have governments that spend substantially below 50% (IMF).

With government spending now comprising roughly 50% of the economy in most wealthy Western nations, following traditional Center Left policies is dependent upon increasing taxes on only 50% of the economy. The cost is slower economic growth which worsens the situation.

The current situation is economically unsustainable, and therefore, the Center-Left political strategy based on redistribution is unsustainable. The result is a long string of electoral defeats and declining popular support.

The failure of the rest of the Left

For more than a century, the Center-Left has been flanked by a Left that is far more radical. The most important group was the Communists and authoritarian Socialists who believed that only a revolutionary overthrow of capitalism and the establishment of a one-party state could resolve the dilemma.

Unfortunately for them (and everyone else in those societies), even the Communists were unable to establish a society that was egalitarian. Yes, income was far more equitably distributed and private wealth was effectively abolished, but the Communists only substituted one form of Inequality for another form of Inequality. In Communists societies, rank within the Communist party determines your income, power and indirectly wealth.

Worse, Communist economic policies could not create economic growth after 1970, so after a long period of stagnation, the vast majority of Communist regimes collapsed in the early 1990s. With exception of few outliers like Cuba, North Korea and Laos, all Communist regimes either:

• Collapsed soon after the fall of the Soviet Union, or

• Abandoned Communist economic policies while preserving the Communist political system (i.e. a one-party state). China and Vietnam are two key examples.

The Soviet quest for Equality collapsed because the goal was never achievable, even in a one-party state with massive government repression, rule by terror, and genocide.

Reality always wins.

I believe that the same fate will soon meet the Center-Left. The question is: what comes next?

The actual results

So both Center-Left parliamentary reform and the revolutionary Communism/Socialism failed to create the state of Equality that they desperately desired. And no other flavor of Left-of-Center ideology has done better.

The Central Moral Dilemma of Left-of-Center ideologies arises between the fundamental conflict between what the Left has claimed to be necessary for over 200 years and the fact that by their own standards Inequality is worse than ever (or at the very least still very much in existence).

Equality is unachievable

The reason why is very simple: Equality or anything approaching it is impossible within a complex and prosperous society. With the exception of Hunter Gatherer societies, every society that has ever existed has had rampant Inequality. Indeed, the existence of that Inequality is central to their entire discourse on the Left.

It is not plausible to claim that the Left can achieve Equality, yet after more than 200 years of trying, Inequality is as bad as ever. That is to ignore the dozens of Left-of-Center governments and the massive resources devoted to programs supported by them. Hence, the irresolvable dilemma.

It is time to recognize that rampant Inequality is the human condition within complex societies. Equality is simply not achievable and attempts to move towards equality do more damage to society than benefits.

Let’s look at the history of Inequality

If you are skeptical of that point, you should read my summary of Walter Scheidel’s “The Great Leveler: Violence and the History of Inequality from the Stone Age to the Twenty-first Century”

Walter Scheidel is one of the leading historians in the field of Ancient History, so he is not affiliated with the political Left or Right. Scheidel uses the latest quantitative data to measure inequality across hundreds of societies over the last 10,000 years.

Scheidel then looks at:

• General trends in inequality of income and wealth across time.

• Interruptions in the general trend that either leads to greater equality or greater inequality than the trend.

• Events or government policies that may explain the interruptions (for better or worse)

Walter Scheidel concludes that:

• Modern societies have much higher standards of living but similar levels of inequality.

• Periods of relative stability inherently lead to increasing inequality.

• The only periods with declining inequality have been marked by what Scheidel calls “The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse”:

  • Total wars, such as World War I and II

  • Revolutionary violence, particularly from Communist regimes

  • Complete collapse of the state, such as the collapse of the Western Roman empire and numerous collapses of Chinese imperial dynasties.

  • Lethal pandemics, such as the Black Death

• Even most wars, civil wars, and peasant revolts have had no real impact on inequality. It is only the most extreme instances of violence and death that did so.

• Peaceful attempts to lessen equality have had little long-term impact, including:

  • Land reform

  • Democracy

  • Public Education and skills building

  • Redistributive taxation

  • Social spending

While I disagree with Scheidel on a few points, I think his overall conclusion is accurate and world-shattering for Left-of-Center ideologies. Again, the Central Moral Dilemma of Left-of-Center ideologies is an irresolvable conflict between:

1. What they deem to be their prime moral goal (Equality), and

2. What they can actually achieve in the material world.

Equality is zero-sum

Even aside from the impossibility of achieving the goal, the goal of Equality has some serious moral problems.

1. Equality is zero-sum. If the goal is Equality, then you must want those who have more to have less. Any improvement in the condition of those with more is considered bad because it undermines Equality.
   But any ethical person who believes that material progress is important should want all people to have more.

2. The easiest method to create a state of Equality is to tear down those who have more. It is far harder to build up those who have less (otherwise everyone would already be wealthy).
   So those who seek Equality are predisposed to tear down those who have more even if they have no initial intention to do so. This is exactly why radical egalitarians are drawn to the “The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse” identified by Scheidel.

3. The material progress that exists today is largely due to the contributions from those who have more (or had more). Indeed, it is difficult to conceive of a world of material progress where those who have more do not contribute to society through their achievements. Those who have less have simply less ability to contribute (and many also have less desire to do so).
   But from the perspective of Equality, all those contributions are bad because the person who makes the contribution acquires more than others.

4. Almost all attempts to help those who have less create negative incentives for them to help themselves. The more that you provide for a person without conditions, the less incentive they have to make the right Life Choices that enable their own upward mobility. And any policy designed to help everyone will not create greater Equality.
   For example, there is no evidence that public education beyond a certain point creates greater Equality. The only way that you can do so is to deliberately deny public education to children of those who have more. This then cripples our chances of future material progress and gives parents less incentive to want to do well.

5. Material progress in the future is also dependent on those who have more making contributions that benefit society. Tearing down those who have more undermines their ability and incentive to contribute to society. So steps to create greater Equality inevitably undermine current and future material progress.
   To create a better society, we need to leverage the efforts of those who have more to make contributions that help society. We should not be trying to tear them down.

6. Creating individual upward mobility for those who have less is partly dependent on them copying the behaviors and attitudes that enabled those who have more to achieve their current position (i.e. copy what works). Why would they copy someone if they believe their behaviors and attitudes are immoral or result in immoral outcomes? A society that valorizes Equality undermines Upward Mobility.

7. The goal of Equality naturally causes anger, resentment, and jealousy among those who have less. While these negative emotions can be used to channel the drive to succeed, these emotions more often lead to demoralization, apathy, and despair. The result of these negative emotions is usually a desire to tear down those who have more. Such policies rarely elevate the poor in the long run.

On the other hand, my proposed goals of material progress and upward mobility are not zero-sum. They are positive-sum. Success by one person does not hurt the chances of success by others. Indeed, success by one makes it easier for others to succeed.

The behaviors and attitudes necessary to achieve individual upward mobility are exactly what are needed to contribute to the material progress of the entire society. Society can valorize material progress and upward mobility and not harm others. Indeed, a society that valorizes material progress and upward mobility creates great benefits for everyone (although those benefits will be unequally distributed).

So what happens after Equality is achieved?

And let’s just hypothetically assume that we can suddenly achieve a state of Equality, then what? Would we not want all of society to have greater levels of material progress and upward mobility going forward?

Obviously, yes.

So how do we do have long-term economic growth (a key part of material progress) while maintaining a state of Equality?

Anyone who makes greater contributions to material progress will be looked at as an immoral person because they are undoing the state of Equality. No one has any individual material incentive to work hard to contribute to society.

So any society that achieves a state of Equality is doomed to remain in a state of poverty or at least material stagnation. So in the long run everyone is hurt.

So why would you want to create a state where everyone is hurt?

So even if Equality were achievable, the attempts to create Equality would still be bad for society.

Inequality starts at conception

There are many causes of Inequality: geography, culture, family structure, differences in work effort, and different life choices. But by far the biggest cause of Inequality is biology.

Humans are biological organisms that evolved through a process of natural selection and sexual selection. The inevitable result of this is that individual humans have different genetics, and those genetic differences were created at conception. Those genetic differences lead to widely varying:

• Levels of intelligence or g factor (which is extremely important to material success in complex societies)

• Levels of conscientiousness (which plays an important role in determining long-term work effort)

• Ability to perform specific physical and mental tasks

• Preferences

• Parenting styles.

Biology causes vast differences between individuals at conception. Those differences are significantly larger than environmental influences that governments in relatively free societies have control over. As with the Communist example that I mentioned earlier, even totalitarian regimes do not have enough control over environmental influences to create Equality.

Biology shaped outcomes (income, wealth, status, etc) through various pathways.

1. Differences in preferences lead to different life choices.

2. Differences in life choices, abilities, and work effort lead to different outcomes.

3. Differences in Intelligence are critical for success in professional-class jobs.

4. Differences in Conscientiousness are critical for success in working-class jobs and general long-term work effort.

5. Serious genetic deficiencies in physical and mental health can sabotage even those who are otherwise very fortunate.

Genetics also plays an important role in establishing the base-line level of happiness for each individual.

So biological diversity rooted in genetics makes Inequality inevitable. And in complex societies (which are more likely to have material progress) those inequalities will be stark even to outrage anyone on the Left.

Below are a few examples of proven heritable traits. Individual environmental traits typically account for far less of the variation in outcomes.

The Left focuses on the far smaller amounts of variation explained by known environmental differences while ignoring the far bigger biological inequalities. And most of those environmental differences are beyond the control of government policy.

Worse, those on the Left shut down debate on the topic of human biological diversity. Why? Because human biological diversity makes Equality impossible to achieve, and they know it.

So we have a choice. We can either:

1. Try to fight against these inevitable Inequalities and tear down those who are blessed by genetics (and other factors) in a vain attempt to create a state of Equality, or:

2. We can try to encourage those who are blessed by genetics (and other factors) to work hard and make contributions to their own upward mobility, which in turn leads to greater material progress and upward mobility for all of us.

The history of the last 10,000 years shows that the first option is impossible and leads to great suffering.

The history of the last 800 years shows that we can achieve the second option and the result is a much better society for all of us. The cost of the second option is that we must give up on the goal of Equality and the psychological benefits that some receive from believing in that goal.

I choose the second option. You simply cannot create a state of Equality among individuals with genetic diversity in a complex society without resorting to force, violence or theft. So let’s just acknowledge the obvious.

My hope is that those on the Left will have the moral courage to do so as well.

So why does the attempt to create Equality continue?

It should be obvious to any objective student of history to conclude that anything like Equality in complex societies is impossible to achieve. And any attempts short of mass death achieve no lasting results that resemble a state of Equality.

So why do supporters of Left-of-Center ideologies not confront that obvious fact? Many of them are very intelligent and well-schooled in history and public policy. Why can they not admit the obvious?

The answer is simple: Left-of-Center ideologies claim that anyone who publicly supports them is “moral” and anyone who is publicly opposed is uninformed, ignorant, immoral, corrupt, or stupid. And no one wants to be publicly branded any of the latter.

Why humans embrace world views

It is important to understand that humans do not necessarily embrace world views because they believe that those world views are accurate descriptions of the material world. Most people embrace a worldview because:

• Other people around them do so, and humans tend to conform to the beliefs of the group.

• The psychological benefits of doing so.

Many social psychologists, including Johnathan Haidt in his book “The Righteous Mind” point out that religions and ideologies play other important roles:

• Enabling humans to believe they are moral.

• (more importantly) Enabling humans to project an image of being moral to others so that others are willing to cooperate with them in groups.

• Give people a common identity that enables the cooperation within larger groups.

As Haidt points out:

• We all want to believe that we are moral.

• More importantly, we want others to believe that we are moral so that we are accepted by a larger group.

The psychological benefits of embracing the Left

I believe the key reason is that those who believe in the goal of Equality receive very large psychological benefits from doing so. Those who believe in Equality (or at least claim to):

1. Feel like they are moral people without having to actually take any actions in the material world. They believe that the government should do all the hard work.

2. Project an image to others that they are a moral person.

3. (more recently as Left-of-Center ideologies have become associated with being a member of the upper class) Project an image to others of being an intelligent person who is also deserving member of the professional class. In other words, they promote their own Social Status.

Unfortunately, because the stated goal of Equality is impossible, supporters of Left-of-Center ideologies can only receive these psychological benefits by abandoning caring about Results. They cannot objectively focus on the Results because that would mean questioning their own moral identity.

This is why supporters of Left-of-Center ideologies focus so much on “good intentions.” This focus on “good intentions” creates circular reasoning and eliminates the need to focus on results.

1. I have “good intentions” because I believe in Equality.

2. How do others know that I have “good intentions?”: because I believe in Equality.

3. All people who believe in Equality have “good intentions.”

It is this moral dimension that makes supporters Left-of-Center ideologies unable to objectively assess the Results of their own beliefs in the material world.

Because the only way that we can improve the material world is small-scale experimentation, focusing on the results, and then pivoting based on the results, this moral dimension of the Left guarantees failure in the material world.

I explain more here why ideologies fail:

The generational cycle

This Central Moral Dilemma and an unwillingness to confront it honestly has led to a continual generational cycle in the wealthy Western world:

1. A new generation of supporters of Left-of-Center ideologies “discover” Inequality, deem it immoral, and criticize previous generations for tolerating this injustice.

2. This new generation claims that all previous failed attempts by previous generations of supporters of Left-of-Center ideology to create Equality can be explained away as:

   1. Previous generations:

      1. not caring enough, or

      2. not trying hard enough, or

      3. not spending enough money, or

      4. not killing enough people, or

      5. focusing on the wrong type of Inequality (class, income, wealth, race, gender, sexuality, nationality, etc)

   2. Nefarious forces sabotaging the efforts of moral crusaders.
      The exact scapegoats vary but the most commonly mentioned are conservatives, the rich, the greedy, corporations, the Establishment, the Top 1%, patriarchy, racists, imperialists, colonialists, slaveowners, the CIA, US foreign policy, US military interventions, etc.

   3. Previous generations being too naive as to just how dangerous the forces listed above are.

3. Those Left-of-Center supporters implement government reforms (or revolution or coup) to solve the problem of Inequality.

4. Those policies have little or no effect on Equality.

5. Despite that failure, the entire generation supporters of Left-of-Center ideology teaches their children, their students and their media viewers that Equality cannot be tolerated by moral people and one’s morality is defined by whether one embraces Equality as a goal.

6. (Twenty or so years later) A new generation of supporters of Left-of-Center ideologies “discover” Inequality, deem it immoral, and criticize previous generations for tolerating this injustice.

7. Repeat for generations, and fail for generations….

What we are living in today with the Woke Revolution over the last 10 years is just the latest instance of a new generation of supporters of Left-of-Center ideologies being unwilling to come to terms with the Central Moral Dilemma of the Left. Each new generation of supporters of Left-of-Center ideology choose preserving their morality identity over creating positive Results in the material world.

Morality should not be based on beliefs alone

This comes from a fundamental misunderstanding of what morality is.

Morality is not what you believe.

Morality is what you do, and more importantly, the results of your repeated actions in the material world. It is easy to claim that one is moral. The true test is what actions you take to help others and the results of those actions on others.

Of course, all people with good intentions take actions that accidentally lead to harm in others. But any individual or group that:

1. repeatedly takes action that causes harm,

2. attacks anyone who points out those results, and then

3. keeps repeating those actions anyway is not acting with concern for others.

Obviously, something else is going on.

It is not moral to believe good thoughts and do nothing.

It is not moral to just state a specific opinion or vote for a specific candidate or party.

It is especially not moral to repeatedly take actions that lead to great harm to society and ignore those results. That is self-indulgence and selfishness, not morality.

Focusing on good intentions has serious costs that are not obvious.

The Left is vulnerable to Preference Falsification

The problem is that Left-of-Center morality is not based on actions or the results of actions. They are not even based on actual beliefs. Left-of-Center morality is based on stated beliefs. If a person states that they believe the above moral assumptions of the Left, all others are supposed to assume that the person is a moral person. If a person does not or states a different set of views, those people are not deemed moral.

This leaves the Left wide open to those who are willing to lie, or perhaps it is better phrased as what psychologists call “preference falsification.” That is a big word for lying, but it is very specific type of lying.

Preference falsification is deliberately lying about your own beliefs to conform to the group. It is important to realize that preference falsification is not lying to conform to the actual opinions of the group. It is lying to conform with the person’s perception of the opinion of the group.

What is so destructive about preference falsification is that the behavior enables a small group of very vocal and aggressive people to create the illusion of group consensus by relentlessly attacking those who disagree with them publicly. To avoid internal group conflict, less aggressive members keep silent about their disagreement and then actually lie to support the continuation of group consensus. They effectively choose the illusion of group consensus over internal discord and being the object of attack.

As Polish psychiatrist Andrzej Łobaczewski has pointed out, preference falsification is fundamental to the consolidation and maintenance of Totalitarian regimes in the 20th Century. Łobaczewski is known for his theory of “Political Ponerology.” Łobaczewski adopted the term "ponerology" which is the branch of theology that studies evil. If you are interested in the concept, I would suggest reading Harrison Koehli’s Substack Political Ponerology

Łobaczewski was a dissident under the Polish Communist regime who believed three things:

1. Totalitarian regimes are “pathocracies” where those with dangerous mental disorders dominate society. The upper and middle rungs of the regimes adopt an ideological mask to legitimize predatory behavior. Without the ideological mask, everyone would realize that the ruling elite were dangerous social predators.

2. Those social predators are kept in power by creating the illusion of group consensus through fear. When everyone is afraid, they will falsify their own preferences to keep from being a target of the regime. This social pressure is every bit as powerful as the threat of execution, torture or imprisonment.

3. The combination of targeted attacks on open dissidents, a strong ideological system that promotes morality, and preference falsification by the majority enables a small minority of dangerous social predators to control a much larger group of people who disagree with them.

The Left is vulnerable to bad actors

This makes Left-of-Center ideologies so tempting for sociopaths, narcissists, and those who are willing to gain favor by dishonesty. I have noticed a strong tendency of otherwise rational persons who believe in Left-of-Center ideologies to give a free pass to obvious grifters who expressed their beliefs.

I think this is because of the idea that if a self-interested person could falsely claim to believe in the Left’s moral assumptions and not be moral, then this fundamentally undermines the morality of the entire worldview. If it is admitted that some people are just pretending to be virtuous, then everyone’s virtue within the movement is under question regardless of their stated opinion. Therefore, those on the Left learn to not question the intent of obvious grifters, or they might fact similar questioning from others.

This leaves supporters of Left-of-Center ideologies wide open to dishonest grifters, self-promoters, sociopaths, and narcissists. So guess who then publicly adopts Left-of-Center slogans, buzzwords, and terminology?

Those with mental disorder are the most vulnerable

Another problem with Left-of-Center ideologies is they can easily appeal to those who suffer from serious (and not-so-serious) mental disorders that cause them to view the world through distorted lenses. When a person has a mental disorder, they can either:

1. Accept that there is something wrong with them and seek help (which may not even be available), or

2. Blame others or society for their problems and try to change the world around them, so they do not have to come to terms with the fact that their problem is within their brain.

Unfortunately, the first option is the choice more often taken. And Left-of-Center ideologies give a very persuasive worldview for choosing the second option.

I think this problem is particularly strong within radical Leftist ideologies, but that problem seems to be leaking out to the rest of Left-of-Center ideologies over the last twenty years. Social media and mobile devices has made these harmful idea propagate at a much higher rate than in previous generations, and young women and teenage girls seem to be the most vulnerable.

The results of ignoring reality

If supporters of Center-left ideology continue to ignore the Central Moral Dilemma and fail to fully reject Equality as a goal, the following are likely to happen.

1. Policies implemented by Center-Left parties will increasingly:

   1. Undermine the foundations of material progress.

   2. Undermine upward mobility for the working class, poor, and racial minorities.

   3. Outrage “normie” voters who have not fully bought into the Left-of-Center ideologies.

2. Because of the above Center-Left parties will gradually decline in electoral support. This will make it impossible to implement their policies in the federal government.

3. Sociopaths, narcissists, and other bad actors will increase as a percentage within the leadership and most enthusiastic followers of Center-Left parties.
   This will lead to constant corruption, scandals, and poor leadership that will further alienate other citizens.
   All popular movements are vulnerable to bad actors, so they each must self-police. A refusal to self-police only encourages other bad actors to come join in on the party. But self-policing means acknowledging the fact that spoken words do not make one moral.

4. People with mental disorders (both strong and mild) will become a higher percentage of the most enthusiastic and determined activists. This will be particularly the case for young women.
   This will cause other citizens to regard the behavior of supporters of Left-of-Center ideologies as self-destructive, hard to understand, and frankly crazy. Few people will want to be associated with such a movement.

5. As moderate “normies” ditch the party, the inmates will increasingly rule the asylum and the movement will eventually collapse. People just do not want to be publicly associated with behaviors associated with mental disorders (even if they are supposedly based on good intentions).

Unfortunately, the morally enticing vision of Left-of-Center ideologies makes their supporters very reluctant to self-reflection. The likely consequences will be the collapse of the Center-Left throughout the wealthy Western world. The Left will remain, but it will be isolated from political power and popular mainly with naive young people who do not yet have the life experience to realize the difference between good intentions and good policies.

The Left needs a Reformation

My hope is that we can fundamentally reshape the Left so that it supports:

1. Promoting long-term widely shared economic growth.

2. Promoting a prosperous working class.

3. Promoting a clear pathway that enables youths from low-income families to enter that prosperous working class.

4. Focusing relentless on Results.

In the mean time, I will maintain my political and ideological independence and be happy to work with whoever is willing to implement policies that work.

You should do the same.

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See also my other articles and podcasts on Ideology:

• Where do ideologies come from?

• Why neither the Left nor the Right have solutions

• Radical ideologies feast on mental disorders

• Why Ideologies Threaten Progress (Part 1 of 3-part podcast series)

• Why neither the Left nor the Right have solutions

• Why ideologies fail (podcast)

• Descent into a man-made Hell: Understanding modern Totalitarianism

• Why the Left endures

• Were Hitler and the National Socialists actually Socialist?

• The Left has hit a historic dead-end

• The Rebirth of the Totalitarian Left in the 21st Century

• The dangers of Soft Totalitarianism

• more

You might also be interested in reading my “From Poverty to Progress” book series: