AUSTERITY – WHY THE CONSERVATIVES WON. In a series of posts in 2009-2011 on Paul

AUSTERITY – WHY THE CONSERVATIVES WON.

In a series of posts in 2009-2011 on Paul Krugman’s blog on the NYT (who will not engage us), and Karl Smith’s (who at the time had the freedom and inclination to engage us), I argued that the only possible solution to the conflict between the short time preference of the left, and the long time preference of the right, was to propose a range of spending and saving options that gave something to everyone. I did this because back-channel conservatives were arguing that they would give into spending and redistribution if they could dismantle some part of monopoly on indoctrination held by the left.

And I know I sounded ridiculous at the time. But my argument was sound. And it’s been proven over time to have been correct: Haidt’s thesis that the conservatives have a lock on morality that can only be overcome by demographics is correct. The conservatives will happily bring the government to a craw, and possibly even bankrupt it, if it means fighting for what they morally believe.

We know that human beings will pay very high costs to punish cheating. This is why the middle doesn’t move. Free riding is cheating. Sure the bankers are bad. But that’s government’s fault. But free riding is also government’s fault. THere is no greater chance that americans will tolerate free riding than germans will.

MORALITY TRUMPS ECONOMICS.

Morality is a product of genetic distribution and family structure. If you don’t grasp and internalize that. Then you will never grasp and internalize politics. And you policy initiatives will always fail.

LIBERTARIANS AND PROGRESSIVES ALIKE

It may not be obvious that I’m criticizing both progressives and libertarians. I am. We are not equal. We do not possess the same moral codes. Our reproductive interests are not the same. And at some point there is a limit to the compromise we will pay to sacrifice our reproductive interests for others.

That we intuit these sensations as moral rather than biological is simply our own egocentrism playing games with us. We are intuitive creatures bound by a thin veil of reason, and enmeshed in a network of habits we call a socially constructed reality. But our justifications are little more than that. In the end, over time, we obey our selfish genes, or we will not exist.

He who breeds wins.