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The fundamental misunderstanding is thinking that people vote to implement their wishes as opposed to express their values. Why don't people vote for policies

The fundamental misunderstanding is thinking that people vote to implement their wishes as opposed to express their values. Why don't people vote for policies that help them-- the rich as well as the poor btw? Working class people vote against social welfare programs, professionals vote for tax hikes. The reality is that people know that their individual vote has a tiny chance of changing policy so the material reward for it is very small. The psychic reward for expressing your values is greater. So the working class person may vote to reduce social welfare, but won't tear up a child tax credit. The professional who votes for higher taxes won't donate an extra $5k to the government. In both cases when those people vote they are expressing their values, not their interests.

gwbas1c 5y ago
> If an autocrat’s “inner circle” feels that their future is insecure, they will be incentivized to improve the lot of the nominal selectorate in case they someday find themselves on the outside. "The professional who votes for higher taxes" probably fears that someday they won't be a professional, much like the autocrat who fears they will someday be on the outside.
LordDragonfang 5y ago
While to a large extent that is true, I think a larger part of the issue is that people actually have different foundational mental models of how the world "really" works. Conservatives, for the most part, believe that a hierarchy of haves and have-nots is not only natural, but inevitable. It is consistent for them to therefore extrapolate that anyone claiming to work on flattening the hierarchy (by giving to the have-nots) must really be trying to get their in-group further up the hierarchy, at the expense of those currently benefitting from it. That's why "He’s not hurting the people he needs to be" can be rationalized as in their self interest. In their view, there is some constant, immutable amount of "hurt" that some demographic has to bear. "No such thing as a free lunch" and such. So deep down, conservatives interpret any calls to reduce that harm as instead being an existential threat to redirect that harm to their group. I really recommend Ian Danskin's videos on the subject, they explain it better than I can in one HN comment, with plenty of scholastic sources: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xMabpBvtXr4&list=PLJA_jUddXvY7v0VkYRbANnTnzkA_HMFtQ&index=10 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xMabpBvtXr4&list=PLJA_jUddXv... (Linked is "Always a Bigger Fish". Many of the historical sources justifying the argument are discussed in the "endnote" video that follows, but this video is the one that lays out this particular argument, along with the later video "I Hate Mondays")

gwbas1c 5y ago

> If an autocrat’s “inner circle” feels that their future is insecure, they will be incentivized to improve the lot of the nominal selectorate in case they someday find themselves on the outside. "The professional who votes for higher taxes" probably fears that someday they won't be a professional, much like the autocrat who fears they will someday be on the outside.

LordDragonfang 5y ago

While to a large extent that is true, I think a larger part of the issue is that people actually have different foundational mental models of how the world "really" works. Conservatives, for the most part, believe that a hierarchy of haves and have-nots is not only natural, but inevitable. It is consistent for them to therefore extrapolate that anyone claiming to work on flattening the hierarchy (by giving to the have-nots) must really be trying to get their in-group further up the hierarchy, at the expense of those currently benefitting from it. That's why "He’s not hurting the people he needs to be" can be rationalized as in their self interest. In their view, there is some constant, immutable amount of "hurt" that some demographic has to bear. "No such thing as a free lunch" and such. So deep down, conservatives interpret any calls to reduce that harm as instead being an existential threat to redirect that harm to their group. I really recommend Ian Danskin's videos on the subject, they explain it better than I can in one HN comment, with plenty of scholastic sources: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xMabpBvtXr4&list=PLJA_jUddXvY7v0VkYRbANnTnzkA_HMFtQ&index=10 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xMabpBvtXr4&list=PLJA_jUddXv... (Linked is "Always a Bigger Fish". Many of the historical sources justifying the argument are discussed in the "endnote" video that follows, but this video is the one that lays out this particular argument, along with the later video "I Hate Mondays")