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Reducing inequality can reverse political polarisation: study

100 points by krigath 5y ago

tehjoker 5y ago
I would note that there are centuries of political theory written on this topic with a famous document written in 1848. Unfortunately, most of this theory concludes that class war is required to create an equal society.
- nopenopenopeno 5y ago
  A far more informative document was written in 1894. https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Das_Kapital https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Das_Kapital
- HideousKojima 5y ago
  And when it fails to do so (and leaves behind a new mountain of skulls in the process), it "wasn't real communism" that time.
  - tehjoker 5y ago
    That comparison always leaves out the larger mountains of skulls created created under capitalism, the Nazi regime for one, the 900k+ COVID deaths in the US, the intentional famine in Bengal [0], etc. It's a long list that is rarely considered. [0] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/mar/29/winston-churchill-policies-contributed-to-1943-bengal-famine-study https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/mar/29/winston-church...
    - HideousKojima 5y ago
      I love how tankies seem to think the only economic system apart from communism is capitalism. We have fascism with the Nazis and mercantilism with British colonial territories, but somehow it's all capitalism because it lets them pretend to win arguments without needing to actually learn how different economic systems work.
      - tehjoker 5y ago
        Capitalism means private ownership of the means of production. There are many ways to organize capitalism, but this is its essential feature. Likewise, there are many ways to organize socialism, where the means of production are owned collectively. Some may more more desirable than others. There have been fewer experiments with socialism than capitalism, and those that have existed have some good features and some bad features. There are some good features to capitalism, but it has long exhausted its progressive character. For example, its good at producing lots of consumer goods. Its weaknesses are an inexorable drive to imperialism, the subjugation of the working class, and a kind of environmental death drive where it can't stop itself.
- Jensson 5y ago
  Yet the best places to live for poor people didn't have class warfare.
- gremlinsinc 5y ago
  No, class war ...is an inevitability. Except the class being fought hardly knows it's at war. To create an equal society requires the classes to rise up and actually join the war for their own souls. The lower classes are too pre-occupied with survival, the elites have all the control, power, and are the ones pre-occupying them with modes for their survival (shitty jobs to pay exorbitant rents to get enough maybe for an iphone, and netflix subscription) so when you're done working 60 hours per week, you only have enough left over time to focus on distractions rather than a coup against the elites. The answer is more unions, more worker co-ops, and providing REAL market alternatives to capitalism in the terms of democratic / DAO style companies that give all employees shares based on input, and maybe even shares for consumers who are loyal to their brand... (like a 5 shares per hour worked, 1 share per dollar spent - upto 10k dollars spent/yr) ... then say there's Walmart, and Walgreens, and MCDonalds competitors in the syndicate of co-ops... all the money they earn are pooled, and maybe everyone w/ at least 10k yearly shares gets free healthcare for the next year, and dividends from a pool of 30% of revenue... These are still capitalist companies in the fact they're ran independently, and created by entrepreneurs they just have governing/managment aspects that give more power to the people who work there... it's a marriage if you will, and one that I think is the only way forward. It provides true dual power, but doesn't require a 'benevolent dictator' which is the evil of communism per se... Communism always turns to Oligarchy, but apparently so does democracy, however co-op owned companies can run more ethically with more care for employees and the environment, and eventually lobby congress for their behalf which is for the employee's behalf.
lost_soul 5y ago
A good place to start is "who does polarization benefit?".
- yjakecombinate 5y ago
  Whoever is living the good life right now, apparently
- gtsop 5y ago
  A good answer to this question is always "the people who benefiy from the established status quo, aka the economic elites"
umvi 5y ago
> The study says, “We see that sufficient redistribution can reduce both inequality and polarisation, although a high degree of redistribution is required to prevent polarisation.” Have they factored in the act of wealth redistribution itself being polarizing? From a statistical/theoretical perspective it checks out, but I bet practically speaking if you actually tried "a high degree of [wealth] distribution", the middle and upper classes would start screaming and it would cause even more polarization. If the key thing needed to reduce polarization is "reducing inequality", it would probably be good to investigate alternative methods of reducing inequality as well.
- Miner49er 5y ago
  Maybe this very thing is what is already causing polarization? Many people are already trying to reduce wealth inequality. Maybe the upper classes are fighting back in a way that causes polarization.
  - pjc50 5y ago
    Well, yes. There's a number of politically-active billionaires funding all sorts of weird hyper-polarizing "news" sources. I put "news" in quotes because when sued for libel these "news" outlets use the defense of "nobody could possibly have believed this was true, it's just entertainment". If a redistributionist looks like they will become popular they will get smeared into the ground.
  - tfigment 5y ago
    Look at housing in the US. Every home owner gate keeps and many rent seek. It is expected that value does not go down and actually increases faster than inflation. That is rational per person but net detrimental and a significant part of increasing inequity as poor and young cannot keep pace generally. Wealth begets wealth. Its also arguable if home owners are the upper class. Maybe there will be another correction but the govt will likely step in to prevent it.
  - hotpotamus 5y ago
    At what level of wealth inequality do you imagine the upper classes saying, "ok, I guess we've got enough, we can stop fighting back now"?
johnchristopher 5y ago
Hard to do scapegoating when people's needs are met.
- MattGaiser 5y ago
  Needs will just increase to meet the threshold for scapegoating. We are the richest and most prosperous humans to ever walk the earth. Scapegoating still exists.
  - johnchristopher 5y ago
    > We are the richest and most prosperous humans to ever walk the earth. Nope. Inequality is increasing locally in the west. There are a lot of poor people everywhere you look. > Needs will just increase to meet the threshold for scapegoating. That goes against the submission but okay. I suppose you are also against minimal wage increases.
theknocker 5y ago
arrakis2021 5y ago
Yes can confirm, in the USSR we had no political polarization. Everyone was always satisfied with the ruling party all the time. It was great joy.
- aivisol 5y ago
  You are joking, right? And everyone was equal except some who were more equal.
  - Yoofie 5y ago
    I think his sarcasm blew a gentle breeze over your head.
- retrac 5y ago
  In practice the USSR was an extremely unequal society in terms of wealth distribution. Growing awareness of the enormous gulf in the standard of living and political power between the nomenklatura and the quasi-enslaved contributed substantially to its collapse.
  - daenz 5y ago
    Sounds like it "wasn't real socialism/communism."
    - _skzr 5y ago
      This is literally the “AckChyually IT WAsnT ReAL CommUniSM” meme
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
  - zajio1am 5y ago
    I do not know about USSR, but AFAIK at least in Czechoslovakia the communist leaders do not really have big personal property. They have enormous political power and also access to property through their functions (assigned appartments and official cars), but not in form of direct ownership.
HideousKojima 5y ago
The study sounds like a crock of horseshit: "In this model, we assume that a large population of individuals comprises two distinct identity groups. These identities are assumed fixed, and thus correspond to a fixed feature of identity such as race, religious heritage, or socioeconomic background. Although such identities are fixed in the model, the salience of the identity, and therefore its impact on behavior, varies." The model assumes only two distinct and unchangeable identity groups, and assumes that these identity groups are solely based on a few specific unchangeable traits. And that's before you get into some of the wacky assumptions in their actual math model. Also of note, they mention Charlottesville and the capitol riot as examples of political polarization, but make no mention of comparable events on the left like the BLM riots, the GOP baseball shooting, etc. Gives you a good idea of where the politics of the authors sit and suggests there may be motivated reasoning behind their arguments. "Solve political polarization by doing more of what the left has wanted to do for over a century!"
- praxulus 5y ago
  Not to defend their methodology, but your attempt to equate the GOP baseball shooting with an attempted coup says a lot more about your biases than the study authors'.
  - chroem- 5y ago
    - ModernMech 5y ago
      Some people were indeed just trespassing, and were charged with trespassing. Others were trespassing and also fighting with police, and they have been charged with more serious offenses. A third group went even further and was actually executing a plan to overthrow the government, and they have been charged with seditious conspiracy.
    - dwater 5y ago
      Of the 700+ people charged for their participation in the January 6th Capitol riot, 11 have been charged with seditious conspiracy. 225 people were charged with assaulting, resisting, or impeding officers or employees. More than 75 of those were charged with using a deadly or dangerous weapon against police officers or causing serious bodily injury to an officer. 640 people were charged with entering a restricted federal building or its grounds. More than 75 were charged with entering a restricted area with a deadly weapon.
uniqueuid 5y ago
Very interesting! I've skimmed the paper and what the model seems to refer to is affective polarization (i.e. hatred towards the outgroup). It gets much more complex when we begin to incorporate other forms (and potentially sources), such as elite, partisan, party and legislative polarization. As umvi mentioned, each of those may be a source or consequence of affective polarization. Or both at the same time! We really need some long-term field experiments (or natural experiments), but this paper definitely seems like a good contribution regarding the dynamics (models of which often have been way too simple).
Barrin92 5y ago
Worth reading Robert Sapolsky on the topic of inequality here[1]. Inequality itself (not poverty, and accounted for the material disadvantages), causes about half of the difference in health and life expectancy outcomes in developed nations, makes people at a neurological level opportunistic and causes biological stress in populations which results in violence, crime, isolation, mental illness, and so forth. That's empirically backed by research and stands in stark contrast to the technocratic myth of "we just have to make everyone wealthier" that's dominated for the last 30-ish years. It's not surprising at all that a population that is running on extreme levels of stress tends towards political polarization. [1]https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-economic-inequality-inflicts-real-biological-harm/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-economic-ineq... edit: short video interview summarizing it because of the paywall: https://youtu.be/aNRPuBJ02MM https://youtu.be/aNRPuBJ02MM
- civilized 5y ago
  I don't believe it. I think it's woo. There's no reason for my health to be harmed just because someone has more than me. I'm open to being proven wrong, but I think this is another social science fad, another victim of academia's ideological blinkers and confirmation bias avalanche. It'll be in and out, just like how eggs and wine and chocolate are good for you on Tuesday and bad for you again by Thursday. EDIT: Yes, I'm sure envious people can tie themselves in knots over inequality, but I don't see this as a social problem. It's a personal psychological problem for those people. And I am skeptical that it is so common as to be my problem.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - lifeisstillgood 5y ago
    It's not that they have more. It's that you know they have more, that it's not fair they have more because they are not better than you, and the path to get more is blocked / unfairly policed. And that eats you up inside. And that eating up is constantly firing stress hormones and heardening your heart. In short, anger leads to hate, hate leads to the dark side.
uniqueuid 5y ago
Having some experience with studies of polarization, maybe I can help clear up where this paper comes from. Basically, there are at least four distinct types of polarization that are commonly studied: * affective polarization (used in this study) measures hatred towards the outgroup. It is commonly measured with the feeling thermometer, alternatively with the gallup question "would you agree if your kid marries someone from X". This polarization has been increasing over time, and recently outparty antagonism in the US surpassed (for the first time) racial antagonism. * ideological/partisan polarization measures diverging support for the two parties, i.e. voters drifting towards the edges of the political spectrum. Note that this does not require that parties also become more extreme. * elite polarization occurs in politicians and can be identified from speeches etc., but also from co-sponsoring of bills * perceived polarization is the perception of how polarized society is Now, the interesting thing is that many of these phenomena have (at least) two distinct causes: Either sorting, i.e. people realizing which party they really want to vote for. This occurs when parties become more extreme and it therefore becomes easier to identify which party is ideologically closer. Alternatively, people themselves may (also) shift ideologically, creating a clearer gap between parties and their electorate. Most research is done on the US due to its simple two-party system, but there is still some debate regarding the true scope and causes of polarization. For example, one paper could not find a clear causal relationship between internet penetration and different forms of polarization [1]. If you're interested, some good references are listed at the end. [1] Boxell, L., Gentzkow, M., & Shapiro, J. (2017). Is the Internet Causing Political Polarization? Evidence from Demographics (No. w23258; p. w23258). National Bureau of Economic Research. https://doi.org/10.3386/w23258 https://doi.org/10.3386/w23258 Abrams, S. J., & Fiorina, M. P. (2012). “The Big Sort” That Wasn’t: A Skeptical Reexamination. PS: Political Science & Politics, 45(2), 203–210. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1049096512000017 https://doi.org/10.1017/S1049096512000017 Fiorina, M., Abrams, S., & Pope, J. (2004). Culture War?: The Myth of a Polarized America. Undefined. https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Culture-War%3A-The-Myth-of-a-Polarized-America-Fiorina-Abrams/e6017cd44a3047d7d1ae7339486a309540eb63ef https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Culture-War%3A-The-Myt... Fletcher, R., Cornia, A., & Nielsen, R. K. (2020). How Polarized Are Online and Offline News Audiences? A Comparative Analysis of Twelve Countries. The International Journal of Press/Politics, 25(2), 169–195. https://doi.org/10.1177/1940161219892768 https://doi.org/10.1177/1940161219892768 Levy, R. (2021). Social Media, News Consumption, and Polarization: Evidence from a Field Experiment. American Economic Review, 111(3), 831–870. https://doi.org/10.1257/aer.20191777 https://doi.org/10.1257/aer.20191777 Stroud, N. J. (2010). Polarization and Partisan Selective Exposure. Journal of Communication, 60(3), 556–576. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1460-2466.2010.01497.x https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1460-2466.2010.01497.x Tucker, J., Guess, A., Barbera, P., Vaccari, C., Siegel, A., Sanovich, S., Stukal, D., & Nyhan, B. (2018). Social Media, Political Polarization, and Political Disinformation: A Review of the Scientific Literature. SSRN Electronic Journal. https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3144139 https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3144139
bell-cot 5y ago
Maybe my old memory is getting fuzzy...but my recollection is that "groups who feel despised, downtrodden, and grimly insecure are far more easily swayed to polarized, extreme, and violent politics" was a "d'oh, obvious" lesson from WWII in Europe.
olliej 5y ago
This study is not a study - they created a mathematical model that has a bunch of behavioural assumptions, given those assumptions reducing inequality improves it. It seems completely plausible that a different set of assumptions could create the opposite. A study would mean looking at actual people, and say directly reducing the inequality. Obviously such a study would be infeasible (time, money, ethics, etc), but that doesn’t mean giving this kind of “study” any credence is actually meaningful. Don’t get me wrong, there’s huge amounts of evidence int the negative outcomes in environments of extreme inequality, but bullshit papers like this aren’t going to do anything except boost the authors H index rating.
- ModernMech 5y ago
  > A study would mean looking at actual people, and say directly reducing the inequality. Obviously such a study would be infeasible Hence models. Your complaint boils down to "This is a model of reality, and not reality therefore it's meaningless." This is a very shallow criticism. Yes, all models come with assumptions. If you have a criticism, it should be about specific assumptions, and not the fact that this is a model.
  - notahacker 5y ago
    Some models incorporate real world data. Some models draw analytical conclusions from [slight modifications] to relationships widely agreed to be true. And some are pretty purely abstract. With this one you can largely guess the conclusion from the stated assumptions despite the complexity of the algebra but... there isn't much reason to believe the stated assumptions approximate reality. Yes, if you model political polarization as economic interactions in which people gain more from riskier trades with people from a different race or political party, pick their political party according to these economic aspirations, and are risk averse in proportion to their income, then the logic of those assumptions is that inequality will make people more likely to sort themselves into parties which match their races and consider those important to their decisions. But I'm not sure that's really how US racial politics works, or that the complexity of the model's dynamics make it more rather than less plausible. There are better reasons to believe reducing inequality can reduce political polarisation than this model, as well as better reasons to believe it won't make much difference
gtsop 5y ago
This just in: people get angry when facing unfair systems.
champagnois 5y ago
I thought this recent drive toward marxist / equity / wealth redistribution positions were the very source of all division and polarisation. I am an extreme skeptic of any such study if it found that appeasement through giving the radicals what they want will result in harmony. These universities today are somewhat infected with the marxist worldview and have been a major source of the polarisation. As another example of justified skepticism, I wonder what their research departments have to say about student debt forgiveness programs? I am sure they will find such programs fantastic. There is no conflict of interest involved there.
JavaBatman 5y ago
Polarization is due to cultural issues, not economic ones. And no, those cultural issues don't stem from economic issues either. That's a Marxian base/superstructure analysis of the situation, which isn't accurate. Furthermore, inequality will always be with us. Pareto principle is an actual thing and is mathematically sound when it comes to economics. Generally, the top 20% will hold 80% of the wealth. Many phenomena exhibit this distribution.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
trembonator 5y ago
[dead]

100 points by krigath 5y ago

I would note that there are centuries of political theory written on this topic with a famous document written in 1848. Unfortunately, most of this theory concludes that class war is required to create an equal society.

nopenopenopeno 5y ago
A far more informative document was written in 1894. https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Das_Kapital https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Das_Kapital
HideousKojima 5y ago
And when it fails to do so (and leaves behind a new mountain of skulls in the process), it "wasn't real communism" that time.
- tehjoker 5y ago
  That comparison always leaves out the larger mountains of skulls created created under capitalism, the Nazi regime for one, the 900k+ COVID deaths in the US, the intentional famine in Bengal [0], etc. It's a long list that is rarely considered. [0] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/mar/29/winston-churchill-policies-contributed-to-1943-bengal-famine-study https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/mar/29/winston-church...
  - HideousKojima 5y ago
    I love how tankies seem to think the only economic system apart from communism is capitalism. We have fascism with the Nazis and mercantilism with British colonial territories, but somehow it's all capitalism because it lets them pretend to win arguments without needing to actually learn how different economic systems work.
    - tehjoker 5y ago
      Capitalism means private ownership of the means of production. There are many ways to organize capitalism, but this is its essential feature. Likewise, there are many ways to organize socialism, where the means of production are owned collectively. Some may more more desirable than others. There have been fewer experiments with socialism than capitalism, and those that have existed have some good features and some bad features. There are some good features to capitalism, but it has long exhausted its progressive character. For example, its good at producing lots of consumer goods. Its weaknesses are an inexorable drive to imperialism, the subjugation of the working class, and a kind of environmental death drive where it can't stop itself.
Jensson 5y ago
Yet the best places to live for poor people didn't have class warfare.
gremlinsinc 5y ago
No, class war ...is an inevitability. Except the class being fought hardly knows it's at war. To create an equal society requires the classes to rise up and actually join the war for their own souls. The lower classes are too pre-occupied with survival, the elites have all the control, power, and are the ones pre-occupying them with modes for their survival (shitty jobs to pay exorbitant rents to get enough maybe for an iphone, and netflix subscription) so when you're done working 60 hours per week, you only have enough left over time to focus on distractions rather than a coup against the elites. The answer is more unions, more worker co-ops, and providing REAL market alternatives to capitalism in the terms of democratic / DAO style companies that give all employees shares based on input, and maybe even shares for consumers who are loyal to their brand... (like a 5 shares per hour worked, 1 share per dollar spent - upto 10k dollars spent/yr) ... then say there's Walmart, and Walgreens, and MCDonalds competitors in the syndicate of co-ops... all the money they earn are pooled, and maybe everyone w/ at least 10k yearly shares gets free healthcare for the next year, and dividends from a pool of 30% of revenue... These are still capitalist companies in the fact they're ran independently, and created by entrepreneurs they just have governing/managment aspects that give more power to the people who work there... it's a marriage if you will, and one that I think is the only way forward. It provides true dual power, but doesn't require a 'benevolent dictator' which is the evil of communism per se... Communism always turns to Oligarchy, but apparently so does democracy, however co-op owned companies can run more ethically with more care for employees and the environment, and eventually lobby congress for their behalf which is for the employee's behalf.

lost_soul 5y ago

A good place to start is "who does polarization benefit?".

yjakecombinate 5y ago
Whoever is living the good life right now, apparently
gtsop 5y ago
A good answer to this question is always "the people who benefiy from the established status quo, aka the economic elites"

umvi 5y ago

> The study says, “We see that sufficient redistribution can reduce both inequality and polarisation, although a high degree of redistribution is required to prevent polarisation.” Have they factored in the act of wealth redistribution itself being polarizing? From a statistical/theoretical perspective it checks out, but I bet practically speaking if you actually tried "a high degree of [wealth] distribution", the middle and upper classes would start screaming and it would cause even more polarization. If the key thing needed to reduce polarization is "reducing inequality", it would probably be good to investigate alternative methods of reducing inequality as well.

Miner49er 5y ago
Maybe this very thing is what is already causing polarization? Many people are already trying to reduce wealth inequality. Maybe the upper classes are fighting back in a way that causes polarization.
- pjc50 5y ago
  Well, yes. There's a number of politically-active billionaires funding all sorts of weird hyper-polarizing "news" sources. I put "news" in quotes because when sued for libel these "news" outlets use the defense of "nobody could possibly have believed this was true, it's just entertainment". If a redistributionist looks like they will become popular they will get smeared into the ground.
- tfigment 5y ago
  Look at housing in the US. Every home owner gate keeps and many rent seek. It is expected that value does not go down and actually increases faster than inflation. That is rational per person but net detrimental and a significant part of increasing inequity as poor and young cannot keep pace generally. Wealth begets wealth. Its also arguable if home owners are the upper class. Maybe there will be another correction but the govt will likely step in to prevent it.
- hotpotamus 5y ago
  At what level of wealth inequality do you imagine the upper classes saying, "ok, I guess we've got enough, we can stop fighting back now"?

johnchristopher 5y ago

Hard to do scapegoating when people's needs are met.

MattGaiser 5y ago
Needs will just increase to meet the threshold for scapegoating. We are the richest and most prosperous humans to ever walk the earth. Scapegoating still exists.
- johnchristopher 5y ago
  > We are the richest and most prosperous humans to ever walk the earth. Nope. Inequality is increasing locally in the west. There are a lot of poor people everywhere you look. > Needs will just increase to meet the threshold for scapegoating. That goes against the submission but okay. I suppose you are also against minimal wage increases.

theknocker 5y ago

arrakis2021 5y ago

Yes can confirm, in the USSR we had no political polarization. Everyone was always satisfied with the ruling party all the time. It was great joy.

aivisol 5y ago
You are joking, right? And everyone was equal except some who were more equal.
- Yoofie 5y ago
  I think his sarcasm blew a gentle breeze over your head.
retrac 5y ago
In practice the USSR was an extremely unequal society in terms of wealth distribution. Growing awareness of the enormous gulf in the standard of living and political power between the nomenklatura and the quasi-enslaved contributed substantially to its collapse.
- daenz 5y ago
  Sounds like it "wasn't real socialism/communism."
  - _skzr 5y ago
    This is literally the “AckChyually IT WAsnT ReAL CommUniSM” meme
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
- zajio1am 5y ago
  I do not know about USSR, but AFAIK at least in Czechoslovakia the communist leaders do not really have big personal property. They have enormous political power and also access to property through their functions (assigned appartments and official cars), but not in form of direct ownership.

HideousKojima 5y ago

The study sounds like a crock of horseshit: "In this model, we assume that a large population of individuals comprises two distinct identity groups. These identities are assumed fixed, and thus correspond to a fixed feature of identity such as race, religious heritage, or socioeconomic background. Although such identities are fixed in the model, the salience of the identity, and therefore its impact on behavior, varies." The model assumes only two distinct and unchangeable identity groups, and assumes that these identity groups are solely based on a few specific unchangeable traits. And that's before you get into some of the wacky assumptions in their actual math model. Also of note, they mention Charlottesville and the capitol riot as examples of political polarization, but make no mention of comparable events on the left like the BLM riots, the GOP baseball shooting, etc. Gives you a good idea of where the politics of the authors sit and suggests there may be motivated reasoning behind their arguments. "Solve political polarization by doing more of what the left has wanted to do for over a century!"

praxulus 5y ago
Not to defend their methodology, but your attempt to equate the GOP baseball shooting with an attempted coup says a lot more about your biases than the study authors'.
- chroem- 5y ago
  - ModernMech 5y ago
    Some people were indeed just trespassing, and were charged with trespassing. Others were trespassing and also fighting with police, and they have been charged with more serious offenses. A third group went even further and was actually executing a plan to overthrow the government, and they have been charged with seditious conspiracy.
  - dwater 5y ago
    Of the 700+ people charged for their participation in the January 6th Capitol riot, 11 have been charged with seditious conspiracy. 225 people were charged with assaulting, resisting, or impeding officers or employees. More than 75 of those were charged with using a deadly or dangerous weapon against police officers or causing serious bodily injury to an officer. 640 people were charged with entering a restricted federal building or its grounds. More than 75 were charged with entering a restricted area with a deadly weapon.

uniqueuid 5y ago

Very interesting! I've skimmed the paper and what the model seems to refer to is affective polarization (i.e. hatred towards the outgroup). It gets much more complex when we begin to incorporate other forms (and potentially sources), such as elite, partisan, party and legislative polarization. As umvi mentioned, each of those may be a source or consequence of affective polarization. Or both at the same time! We really need some long-term field experiments (or natural experiments), but this paper definitely seems like a good contribution regarding the dynamics (models of which often have been way too simple).

Barrin92 5y ago

Worth reading Robert Sapolsky on the topic of inequality here[1]. Inequality itself (not poverty, and accounted for the material disadvantages), causes about half of the difference in health and life expectancy outcomes in developed nations, makes people at a neurological level opportunistic and causes biological stress in populations which results in violence, crime, isolation, mental illness, and so forth. That's empirically backed by research and stands in stark contrast to the technocratic myth of "we just have to make everyone wealthier" that's dominated for the last 30-ish years. It's not surprising at all that a population that is running on extreme levels of stress tends towards political polarization. [1]https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-economic-inequality-inflicts-real-biological-harm/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-economic-ineq... edit: short video interview summarizing it because of the paywall: https://youtu.be/aNRPuBJ02MM https://youtu.be/aNRPuBJ02MM

civilized 5y ago
I don't believe it. I think it's woo. There's no reason for my health to be harmed just because someone has more than me. I'm open to being proven wrong, but I think this is another social science fad, another victim of academia's ideological blinkers and confirmation bias avalanche. It'll be in and out, just like how eggs and wine and chocolate are good for you on Tuesday and bad for you again by Thursday. EDIT: Yes, I'm sure envious people can tie themselves in knots over inequality, but I don't see this as a social problem. It's a personal psychological problem for those people. And I am skeptical that it is so common as to be my problem.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- lifeisstillgood 5y ago
  It's not that they have more. It's that you know they have more, that it's not fair they have more because they are not better than you, and the path to get more is blocked / unfairly policed. And that eats you up inside. And that eating up is constantly firing stress hormones and heardening your heart. In short, anger leads to hate, hate leads to the dark side.

uniqueuid 5y ago

Having some experience with studies of polarization, maybe I can help clear up where this paper comes from. Basically, there are at least four distinct types of polarization that are commonly studied: * affective polarization (used in this study) measures hatred towards the outgroup. It is commonly measured with the feeling thermometer, alternatively with the gallup question "would you agree if your kid marries someone from X". This polarization has been increasing over time, and recently outparty antagonism in the US surpassed (for the first time) racial antagonism. * ideological/partisan polarization measures diverging support for the two parties, i.e. voters drifting towards the edges of the political spectrum. Note that this does not require that parties also become more extreme. * elite polarization occurs in politicians and can be identified from speeches etc., but also from co-sponsoring of bills * perceived polarization is the perception of how polarized society is Now, the interesting thing is that many of these phenomena have (at least) two distinct causes: Either sorting, i.e. people realizing which party they really want to vote for. This occurs when parties become more extreme and it therefore becomes easier to identify which party is ideologically closer. Alternatively, people themselves may (also) shift ideologically, creating a clearer gap between parties and their electorate. Most research is done on the US due to its simple two-party system, but there is still some debate regarding the true scope and causes of polarization. For example, one paper could not find a clear causal relationship between internet penetration and different forms of polarization [1]. If you're interested, some good references are listed at the end. [1] Boxell, L., Gentzkow, M., & Shapiro, J. (2017). Is the Internet Causing Political Polarization? Evidence from Demographics (No. w23258; p. w23258). National Bureau of Economic Research. https://doi.org/10.3386/w23258 https://doi.org/10.3386/w23258 Abrams, S. J., & Fiorina, M. P. (2012). “The Big Sort” That Wasn’t: A Skeptical Reexamination. PS: Political Science & Politics, 45(2), 203–210. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1049096512000017 https://doi.org/10.1017/S1049096512000017 Fiorina, M., Abrams, S., & Pope, J. (2004). Culture War?: The Myth of a Polarized America. Undefined. https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Culture-War%3A-The-Myth-of-a-Polarized-America-Fiorina-Abrams/e6017cd44a3047d7d1ae7339486a309540eb63ef https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Culture-War%3A-The-Myt... Fletcher, R., Cornia, A., & Nielsen, R. K. (2020). How Polarized Are Online and Offline News Audiences? A Comparative Analysis of Twelve Countries. The International Journal of Press/Politics, 25(2), 169–195. https://doi.org/10.1177/1940161219892768 https://doi.org/10.1177/1940161219892768 Levy, R. (2021). Social Media, News Consumption, and Polarization: Evidence from a Field Experiment. American Economic Review, 111(3), 831–870. https://doi.org/10.1257/aer.20191777 https://doi.org/10.1257/aer.20191777 Stroud, N. J. (2010). Polarization and Partisan Selective Exposure. Journal of Communication, 60(3), 556–576. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1460-2466.2010.01497.x https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1460-2466.2010.01497.x Tucker, J., Guess, A., Barbera, P., Vaccari, C., Siegel, A., Sanovich, S., Stukal, D., & Nyhan, B. (2018). Social Media, Political Polarization, and Political Disinformation: A Review of the Scientific Literature. SSRN Electronic Journal. https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3144139 https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3144139

bell-cot 5y ago

Maybe my old memory is getting fuzzy...but my recollection is that "groups who feel despised, downtrodden, and grimly insecure are far more easily swayed to polarized, extreme, and violent politics" was a "d'oh, obvious" lesson from WWII in Europe.

olliej 5y ago

This study is not a study - they created a mathematical model that has a bunch of behavioural assumptions, given those assumptions reducing inequality improves it. It seems completely plausible that a different set of assumptions could create the opposite. A study would mean looking at actual people, and say directly reducing the inequality. Obviously such a study would be infeasible (time, money, ethics, etc), but that doesn’t mean giving this kind of “study” any credence is actually meaningful. Don’t get me wrong, there’s huge amounts of evidence int the negative outcomes in environments of extreme inequality, but bullshit papers like this aren’t going to do anything except boost the authors H index rating.

ModernMech 5y ago
> A study would mean looking at actual people, and say directly reducing the inequality. Obviously such a study would be infeasible Hence models. Your complaint boils down to "This is a model of reality, and not reality therefore it's meaningless." This is a very shallow criticism. Yes, all models come with assumptions. If you have a criticism, it should be about specific assumptions, and not the fact that this is a model.
- notahacker 5y ago
  Some models incorporate real world data. Some models draw analytical conclusions from [slight modifications] to relationships widely agreed to be true. And some are pretty purely abstract. With this one you can largely guess the conclusion from the stated assumptions despite the complexity of the algebra but... there isn't much reason to believe the stated assumptions approximate reality. Yes, if you model political polarization as economic interactions in which people gain more from riskier trades with people from a different race or political party, pick their political party according to these economic aspirations, and are risk averse in proportion to their income, then the logic of those assumptions is that inequality will make people more likely to sort themselves into parties which match their races and consider those important to their decisions. But I'm not sure that's really how US racial politics works, or that the complexity of the model's dynamics make it more rather than less plausible. There are better reasons to believe reducing inequality can reduce political polarisation than this model, as well as better reasons to believe it won't make much difference

gtsop 5y ago

This just in: people get angry when facing unfair systems.

champagnois 5y ago

I thought this recent drive toward marxist / equity / wealth redistribution positions were the very source of all division and polarisation. I am an extreme skeptic of any such study if it found that appeasement through giving the radicals what they want will result in harmony. These universities today are somewhat infected with the marxist worldview and have been a major source of the polarisation. As another example of justified skepticism, I wonder what their research departments have to say about student debt forgiveness programs? I am sure they will find such programs fantastic. There is no conflict of interest involved there.

JavaBatman 5y ago

Polarization is due to cultural issues, not economic ones. And no, those cultural issues don't stem from economic issues either. That's a Marxian base/superstructure analysis of the situation, which isn't accurate. Furthermore, inequality will always be with us. Pareto principle is an actual thing and is mathematically sound when it comes to economics. Generally, the top 20% will hold 80% of the wealth. Many phenomena exhibit this distribution.

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trembonator 5y ago

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