One People, Two Minds

Are you frustrated that your Republican or Democrat friends – depending on your affiliation – don’t understand you?  There are some surveys I recently saw that made me again think of the current state of our two-mindedness.

So, let’s ask:  What makes the people of a country disagree on important issues?  One reason among my top candidates is that the national narrative no longer works for everybody.  Narratives are useful because, like glue, they keep societies together under one vision informed by common historical experiences and shared values.  But narratives may have a shelf life.

In the American narrative, ambitious individualism and strong work ethic lead to success.  That seemed true in a simpler economy, less based on knowledge and technology, and less dominated by big corporations.  There is no longer a Wild West to conquer or fields and prairies to turn to wheat fields and ranches.  Individualism is now tramped by the methodical advance of corporations organized, systematized and programmed by the McKinseys of the global ecosystem. These days, a big retailer opens in your area and wipes out your life as a proprietor.    A Chinese young man leaves his village and heads to Guangdong’s industrial hub and there goes your assembly line job in Toledo Ohio.  The narrative was careful to promise equal opportunities not equal outcomes.  But this is no longer true.  Opportunities still exist but like other goods are concentrated in fewer hands.  You were told that merit is your ticket to success but meritocracy is challenged every day by the entitlement ethos of those who can afford to give their own a leg up by all means.  So, not every American buys into this narrative.

Another suspect in bringing people apart is partisan politics.  Parties have an interest to promote an “us versus them” mentality.  Tribalism keeps party supporters in the fold.  Parties can still weave ideas from the same national narrative but using different versions.  To the Republican base, the national narrative remains alive if its protagonists are mainly European descendants.   To the Democratic base the narrative remains alive no matter what the ethnic background of the new Americans is.

And then there is a third suspect of the two-mindedness.  It is our instinctive and genetic predispositions that along with our life experiences shape our political preferences.  At the very core, we are not more liberal or more conservative just because we are indoctrinated in partisan ideas and by culture.  We are liberals or conservatives because we already have what it takes to be one or the other.  Cultural experiences may moderate or intensify our original tendencies but do not change them.  We all operate under the same set of instincts but we are not all equally motivated by these instincts.  As a result, our behavior and choices differ.

The genetic story predicts that liberals care more about the human condition of others and value equality in outcomes.  To conservatives, care is left to the individual and fairness in the distribution of rewards has to be proportional to the effort.   Therefore, a narrative of merit justifies the uneven split of spoils.  A liberal is less loyal to the group’s values because individual freedom for experimentation matters.  A conservative, on the other hand, prides loyalty to the group.  Hence, conservatives are keen on nationalism and security.  Liberals respect authority and hierarchy less than conservatives.  Sanctity and the risk of degradation matter less to liberals.  Conservatives are more repulsed by impurity of life styles and (national, religious or tribal) symbols.  Liberals resent top-down rules imposed by governing bodies.  Conservatives are more inclined to accept, even, impose common rules to all.

Jonathan Haidt uses this matrix of moral foundations to explain the divergent views of Republicans and Democrats.   The Pew Research Center periodically publishes surveys on partisan views.  Its recent surveys show that Republicans and Democrats are far apart how seriously they think of climate change and environmental protections.  Is this because Republicans outright discard science?  Isn’t rather plausible that Republicans are more innately averse to experimenting with a new way of life under environmental and climate-driven constraints?  The same large discrepancy also applies to how Republicans and Democrats see guns and the military.  Both have to do with how effectively a person can protect his group (i.e., his tribe) and impose authority.  Democrats are less keen on these security-related issues.  Race and immigration also divide Republicans and Democrats, most likely because sameness of the other matters to conservatives more as a way of promoting social cohesion and loyalty.  Poverty leaves Republicans less concerned because they take it to be the result of lesser effort and merit and, hence, a fair outcome.  Democrats see more the hand of unfair distribution and, thus, they want to fix it through social programs.

The NYT recently published the results of an international experiment regarding how liberals and conservatives think and act.  When asked about poverty, three quarters of American liberals and non-Americans (liberals and conservatives) voiced concern about it whereas only a quarter of American conservatives did so.  Government policies to alleviate poverty were also supported by American liberals and non-Americans by a wide margin contrary to their limited acceptance by American conservatives.  Similarly, American conservatives were much more likely to justify poverty on such factors, like ability, hard work and risk taking, thus, suggesting that rich people deserve what they earn, in line with the American narrative regarding the positive link of wealth to merit.

But here is the surprise.  When the participants were asked to share with others an extra bonus income received randomly, American conservatives were equally likely to split it fairly with others just like the liberals.  When participants were told the extra income was due to greater effort, only a minority of American liberals and conservatives split it with less “productive” participants.  This means American liberals are not unwilling to accept merit as a cause of income inequality.  And conservatives were found to give to charity with the same frequency as liberals, suggesting they are not insensitive to poverty.

This experiment shows that national and party narratives are powerful influences of peoples’ ideology.  American conservatives do believe the traditional American narrative that links success to hard work and ability.  That’s why they are reluctant to support more taxes and social programs to reduce poverty.  However, the power of the naturally selected instincts of reciprocal altruism and fairness do manifest themselves when it comes to acting out.

It seems to me that our common biological origin binds us more than the divergent ideas we have as to how we can make our condition better.

Author: George Papaioannou

Distinguished Professor Emeritus (Finance), Hofstra University, USA. Author of Underwriting and the New Issues Market. Former Vice Dean, Zarb School of Business, Hofstra University. Board Director, Jovia Financial Federal Credit Union. View all posts by George Papaioannou