Why the Left endures

And a progress-based theory of inequality and poverty

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Ideologies on the Left go back at least as far as the French Revolution and Karl Marx. Their track record of success in establishing societies to conform to their stated ideals is dubious at best. Virtually all their attempts to establish utopian societies have led to epic failure or distinctively dystopian societies. The only real exception has been Social Democrats who gave up their support for Marxism and reluctantly agreed to work within the Liberal Democratic Capitalist system. Even that flavor of Leftist ideology is hitting a dead end.

And yet popular belief in Leftist ideologies, particularly among intellectuals, is still going strong with no end in sight.

Why?

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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 (this article)

• 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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I believe that ideologies of the Left endure because:

1. For virtually all of human history people lived within the Hunter-Gatherer society type, the most egalitarian society type that has ever existed.

2. To function properly with the Hunter-Gatherer society type, humans evolved powerful psychological instincts to:

   1. Value the concept of fairness.

   2. (perhaps more importantly) Project an image to others that one values the concept of fairness. This image enables cooperation within the group because anyone who is oblivious to the concept of fairness will eventually turn on you.

3. Virtually all children have been raised within families.
   One can make a case that the nuclear family is the sole example of Communism that works. The family functions according to the slogan popularized by Karl Marx: “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.” This reinforces our evolved psychological instincts from Hunter-Gatherer times.

4. Very large inequalities exist in all modern societies (and virtually all ancient ones as well). This conflicts strongly with our evolved psychological preferences from Hunter-Gatherer times and our childhood experiences.

5. The Left has a sophisticated and morally compelling explanation for:

   1. Why inequalities exist

   2. Why inequality is morally wrong

   3. A set of policies and actions that we can take to radically reduce or eliminate those inequalities.

   4. Why we all should care about the three points above to such an extent as to make it part of our entire worldview.

6. No other competing ideology or worldview can offer the same.

In other words, the ideologies of the Left satisfy very powerful psychological instincts better than other competing world views.

It should not be a surprise that:

• Movements of the Left are dominated by young people who have only recently exited their family: i.e. the “Communist regime that works.”

• When challenged by opponents, supporters of the Left invariably base their arguments on moral claims, and either imply or explicitly state that their opponent is less moral than themselves.

The Leftist explanation for inequality typically involves one or more causes from today or relatively recent history:

• Bad political leaders (who are not Leftists)

• Government policies (implemented by non-Leftists)

• Racism

• Capitalism

• Patriarchy

• Trade or some other economic force

• Colonialism

• Exploitation

• War

• Slavery or the legacy of slavery

Regardless of whether you agree with those explanations, you cannot argue that they are not morally compelling. If one starts with the assumptions that I make from the list above, it is not too difficult to understand why ideologies of the Left have captivated a substantial portion of modern voters.

If you doubt me, ask yourself: What is the Conservative explanation for inequality? What is the Libertarian or Classical Liberal explanation for inequality? What is the Moderate explanation for inequality?

I am not saying that they have no answers, but I think that you must agree that they have less morally compelling answers.

Why this matters

One of the key goals of my work is to replace the current Left, which I believe undermines the foundations of Progress and Upward Mobility, with a new Progress-based perspective that is far more effective.

Whereas the Left tends to blame certain types of people for inequalities and attempts to solve them with either revolution or the constant expansion of the government, a Progress-based reform agenda has the following principles:

1. Promote long-term economic growth.

2. Create a prosperous working class.

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

4. Focus relentlessly on results.

5. Reform the political process to make all the above possible.

Results vs good intentions

It is in the fourth point above that the Progress-based perspective is far superior to the ideologies of the Left:

• The Left focuses on good intentions (and typically ignores results)

• The Progress-based perspective focuses on results.

This makes the Progress-based perspective far more flexible and effective, as its policies and practices can pivot based on results.

But I digress. Let’s get back to compelling explanations of inequalities and poverty.

Towards a Progress-based explanation for inequalities

Because of all the above, it is very important that we come up with competing explanations for poverty and current inequalities within and between nations.

The explanation must:

• Be simple enough that regular everyday people can grasp it.

• Be convincing to regular everyday people (the ideologues will never be convinced, but they are in the minority).

• Disprove the prevailing narrative on the Left (and the narratives of other ideologies).

• Accurately fit the facts both today and in the past.

• Lead to policy reforms that can plausibly benefit:

  • the working class, poor, and racial minorities in wealthy nations

  • developing nations.

• Be testable in the real world with systematic policy evaluation.

The simple explanation

Below is the shortened explanation for regular everyday people.

I believe poverty and current inequalities within and between nations can be explained by the following:

1. Poverty, inequality, ignorance, and war are the natural state of humans. It is only quite recently that most of us have been able to live in relative prosperity.

2. Inequality cannot be eliminated without destroying prosperity and individual rights.

3. Long-term economic growth (progress) benefits the working class, poor, racial minorities, and developing nations much more than government social programs over the long run.

4. The fact that some people benefit more from progress than others does not invalidate the benefits of long-term economic growth.

5. Rather than Equality, we should be aiming for Progress and Upward Mobility.

The sophisticated longer version

Below is the longer and more sophisticated explanation for progress skeptics who demand more evidence and precision.

I believe poverty and current inequalities within and between nations can be explained by the following:

1. Poverty, inequality, ignorance, and war are the natural state of humans. It is not because bad people did bad things to good people. It is because humans are biological organisms that evolved from other animals that had similar natural states.

2. Humans, like all biological organisms, are constrained by a need to survive and reproduce. To do so, we need to consume energy in the form of food from the natural environment. Geography seriously constrains the types of food that can be produced in each region. Technological innovation can only loosen these constraints so much.

3. Those geographical constraints forced human societies to evolve in very different directions. We can categorize those different types of societies into society types.

4. By accident, one of those society types, Commercial societies, invented human material progress sometime after 1200. They were able to do so because of unique geographical and political conditions that were not inevitable.

5. Progress is an evolutionary process. By that, I mean that no person, institution, or God is in charge of it. It resulted from humans accidentally discovering certain fundamental preconditions, which I call the Five Keys to Progress.

6. Once a few societies discovered the Five Keys to Progress, they created a vast, decentralized problem-solving network. Instead of people competing against each other for scarce resources such as food, status, and land, individuals can focus on solving each other’s problems at scale by cooperation.

7. Like all evolutionary processes, progress spreads very unequally across the globe and within societies. So at any one time, one can see:

   1. Vast inequalities left over from the past. The reason that some people or societies have not yet experienced progress is because of long-term historical factors that go back millennia.

   2. More societies experience progress as they copy what works in other societies. Particularly since 1990, progress has been spreading across the globe and dramatically increasing the standard of living of the masses.

   3. More individuals within those societies experience upward mobility as they copy what works for other members within their own society.
      A snapshot at any given time completely misses the trend.
      Looking at just one nation over a short period also completely misses the trend.

8. The solution to continued poverty and inequality is not government programs, political protest, or violent revolution. It is maintaining the foundations of progress so that it will spread to all people.

9. Rather than Equality, we should be aiming for Progress and Upward Mobility. Progress is the increased material standard of living for societies, and Upward Mobility is the increased material standard of living for individuals living within those societies.

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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 (this article)

• 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: