Does reality have a left-wing bias?

It has been asserted on a different thread that reality has a left-wing bias. Rather than de-rail the other thread I've started a new one. I would assert that reality has no bias at all. Indeed the discernment of reality usually entails casting bias to one side. Of course what the statement "reality has a left-wing bias" really means is that the left tend to be better than the right at discerning the truth.

I strongly disagree with this assertion. I can see both truth and falsehoods asserted from both right and left wing perspectives:

1. Left-wing truths- The left usually lean towards the weaker members of society. As the wealthy have greater access to the justice system the poor are often unfairly treated in a society. They also have less access to resources to make their voice heard. In this sense the left can sometimes uncover truths that are obscured by an unequal distribution of resources.

2.Left-wing falsehoods- there can be little doubt in this day and age that capitalist free-markets have delivered a higher standard of living for all income groups. The left sometimes deny this and perpetuate a myth that capitalism causes poverty.

3. Right-wing truths- The right assert that capitalist free markets increase freedom generally and promote multi-culturalism. This is a credible assertion. Free markets create a plurality of power centers and groups with a broad range of world-views are free to use their resources in support of their particular culture.

4. Right-wing falsehoods- The right sometimes ignore or deny the unintended consequences of the free market, which justify state intervention such as environmental damage and inequality.

I can't see that any ideology has a monopoly on the truth.
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Comments

  • I'll get into the arguments later, but reality having a bias towards the left does not imply monopoly.

  • Makepeace wrote: »
    (...)

    1. Left-wing truths- The left usually lean towards the weaker members of society. As the wealthy have greater access to the justice system the poor are often unfairly treated in a society. They also have less access to resources to make their voice heard. In this sense the left can sometimes uncover truths that are obscured by an unequal distribution of resources.
    (...)

    3. Right-wing truths- The right assert that capitalist free markets increase freedom generally and promote multi-culturalism. This is a credible assertion. Free markets create a plurality of power centers and groups with a broad range of world-views are free to use their resources in support of their particular culture.

    (...)

    From the 'truths' asserted, the 'left-wing truths' appear to be about what people do, while the 'right-wing truths' are about what people say - apparently ('The right assert') without the support of evidence. This doesn't feel like comparing like with like.

  • DafydDafyd Shipmate
    Makepeace wrote: »
    2.Left-wing falsehoods- there can be little doubt in this day and age that capitalist free-markets have delivered a higher standard of living for all income groups. The left sometimes deny this and perpetuate a myth that capitalism causes poverty.

    3. Right-wing truths- The right assert that capitalist free markets increase freedom generally and promote multi-culturalism. This is a credible assertion. Free markets create a plurality of power centers and groups with a broad range of world-views are free to use their resources in support of their particular culture.
    If you look at the data more closely this interpretation doesn't hold up so well. The era in the West in which capitalist free markets delivered a higher standard of living for all income groups was the fifties to the seventies, a period in which 'capitalist free-markets' had very much more state intervention that they do today. You could probably date the start of the period earlier to Roosevelt's New Deal policies in the US. Corbyn's Labour was considered unacceptably far left by many commentators for proposing policies well to the right of what the Conservatives were proposing during the period.
    Since the Eighties, when the modern economic free market consensus came into being, incomes have stagnated for the majority of income groups, and income for the poorest income groups has begun to fall again.

    Those nations where standards of living for all income groups are rising at the moment are nations that have much more state involvement in the economy that is standard in the West.

    Summary: the form of free market capitalism currently advocated by the right is not the form that has delivered a higher standard of living for all income groups. The form of capitalism that has delivered a higher standard of living is that advocated by what is now the far left.

  • Makepeace wrote: »
    It has been asserted on a different thread that reality has a left-wing bias.

    This saying originated with Stephen Colbert at the 2006 White House Correspondent's Dinner [video]. It may or may not have been a play on a Bush aide's (probably Karl Rove) denigration of what he called "the reality-base community".
    The aide said that guys like me were 'in what we call the reality-based community,' which he defined as people who 'believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.' I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. 'That's not the way the world really works anymore,' he continued. 'We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality — judiciously, as you will — we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors ... and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do'.

    There does not seem to be a similar thread of conspiracism and will to power among the American left. See, for example, the QAnon theory that a secret cabal of Satan-worshipping cannibal pedophiles controls the world and that Donald Trump and the secretly still alive JFK, Jr. are working behind the scenes to uncover it. I don't think there's an equivalent on the American left. Certainly not one that would be given the credence that QAnon has been given by Republican elected officials.
  • Dafyd wrote: »

    Those nations where standards of living for all income groups are rising at the moment are nations that have much more state involvement in the economy that is standard in the West.

    Summary: the form of free market capitalism currently advocated by the right is not the form that has delivered a higher standard of living for all income groups. The form of capitalism that has delivered a higher standard of living is that advocated by what is now the far left.

    I'm not suggesting that the truth is that no state intervention is justified. You may have noted that I cited this as an example of a right-wing falsehood. The point is that even where there has been state intervention it is capitalist free market that have produced the wealth. Living standards were far lower in Chine before the decision to liberalise markets there.

    Nonetheless I am not convinced that your data is correct. It does not appear to be the conclusion of this report:

    https://www.ifs.org.uk/bns/bn89.pdf

    It is also not consistent with my experience. When I was growing up in Liverpool in the early 80s there were eye-sores everywhere and you could see the impact of poverty. During the economic boom that began around 1994 there was significant redevelopment in the city.

    Could it be that by controlling inflation people were better off in real terms? I'm not suggesting that incomes rose but only that the standard of living rose after 1979.
  • jay_emmjay_emm Shipmate
    edited November 2020
    Fawkes Cat wrote: »
    From the 'truths' asserted, the 'left-wing truths' appear to be about what people do, while the 'right-wing truths' are about what people say - apparently ('The right assert') without the support of evidence. This doesn't feel like comparing like with like.
    That does chime in with something that more general, I've wondered.

    I'm not sure whether it comes to understanding local people or where saying something is able to alter reality, but in such cases the right do possibly seem to have evidence on their side. "Get Brexit Done" worked. The people (despite the evidence, and accepting the whole FPTP thing) did see Johnson as a strong leader. You could even add, people don't want to wear masks. Shares could be in a similar bracket.

    On the other hand the negotiations are a different type of reality, and even more so with the Virus. You can't bluff the virus, you can't negotiate with the virus, and because it's exponential you can't jump from "nothing's happened, quit whining" to "too late now, time to move on".
    [and there with this fundemental reality the right do seem to struggle]
  • "Sure interventions are good but it's capitalism that is delivering the goods" seems like special pleading. With blue spectacles on, everything looks blue, as C.S. Lewis said (although he wasn't using "blue" in the American political sense and shouldn't be read that way).
  • RussRuss Shipmate
    Taking the comment literally, clearly reality can have no bias. The concept of bias refers to whether a representation of something is a slanted or distorted representation. Reality is not a representation of anything; it just is.

    And most of the time, a slanted story isn't untrue. All stories include some aspects of reality and leave out others. Left-leaning or right-leaning narratives leave out different bits of the whole picture.
  • Makepeace wrote: »
    Dafyd wrote: »

    Those nations where standards of living for all income groups are rising at the moment are nations that have much more state involvement in the economy that is standard in the West.

    Summary: the form of free market capitalism currently advocated by the right is not the form that has delivered a higher standard of living for all income groups. The form of capitalism that has delivered a higher standard of living is that advocated by what is now the far left.

    I'm not suggesting that the truth is that no state intervention is justified. You may have noted that I cited this as an example of a right-wing falsehood. The point is that even where there has been state intervention it is capitalist free market that have produced the wealth. Living standards were far lower in Chine before the decision to liberalise markets there.

    Nonetheless I am not convinced that your data is correct. It does not appear to be the conclusion of this report:

    https://www.ifs.org.uk/bns/bn89.pdf
    Yeah, a report by an organisation that opposes campaign finance reform. A stance which, BTW, is opposed to the ideal implied by their name. The point being if even their name is misleading, one needs to apply extra scrutiny to any "reports" they produce.



  • While Makepeace chooses to refer to capitalism to present his arguments, maybe the better topic would be climate change. Republicans tend to discount climate change because it will hurt the economy. Democrats want to address climate change in order to save the economy.
  • lilbuddha wrote: »
    Makepeace wrote: »
    Dafyd wrote: »

    Those nations where standards of living for all income groups are rising at the moment are nations that have much more state involvement in the economy that is standard in the West.

    Summary: the form of free market capitalism currently advocated by the right is not the form that has delivered a higher standard of living for all income groups. The form of capitalism that has delivered a higher standard of living is that advocated by what is now the far left.

    I'm not suggesting that the truth is that no state intervention is justified. You may have noted that I cited this as an example of a right-wing falsehood. The point is that even where there has been state intervention it is capitalist free market that have produced the wealth. Living standards were far lower in Chine before the decision to liberalise markets there.

    Nonetheless I am not convinced that your data is correct. It does not appear to be the conclusion of this report:

    https://www.ifs.org.uk/bns/bn89.pdf
    Yeah, a report by an organisation that opposes campaign finance reform. A stance which, BTW, is opposed to the ideal implied by their name. The point being if even their name is misleading, one needs to apply extra scrutiny to any "reports" they produce.



    Scrutinise away.
  • mousethief wrote: »
    "Sure interventions are good but it's capitalism that is delivering the goods" seems like special pleading. With blue spectacles on, everything looks blue, as C.S. Lewis said (although he wasn't using "blue" in the American political sense and shouldn't be read that way).

    Removing tinted spectacles is precisely what I'm advocating. I'm not sure that Dafyd and I disagree that capitalist free markets produce wealth. The aim of government interventions is usually to mitigate the unintended effects of free markets. Occasionally an attempt is made to intervene to the extent that free markets are entirely obstructed as in China under Mao. Living standards were very poor in that scenario as they also were in eastern Europe before the wall fell.
  • There is a lot more to poverty than wealth, and measuring living standards by income (even disposable income) hides that.

    A society that provides universal basic services is impossible to quantify by that criteria. Universal healthcare is a huge boon to those of restricted means, as would free high quality education, housing, transport and legal services, and sustenance (however it is provided).

    On a more retrospective note, stripping agricultural land from rural families deprives them of shelter, food, and income - but forcing them to work in a sweatshop for a dollar a day is counted as 'lifting them out of poverty'.
  • Barnabas62Barnabas62 Purgatory Host, 8th Day Host, Epiphanies Host
    Carl Bernstein was talking about this issue on CNN a couple of hours ago and was referring to the way right wing media in the USA have largely abandoned “the best available version of the truth”.

    I think Carl has a point. The post election coverage of talk radio, Newsmax, OAN and the chat Hosts on Fox News has been devoted to fostering and spreading the false narrative of fraud. And they are believed by some three quarters of GOP voters.
  • Russ wrote: »
    And most of the time, a slanted story isn't untrue. All stories include some aspects of reality and leave out others. Left-leaning or right-leaning narratives leave out different bits of the whole picture.

    This has been referred to as the "Shape of the Earth: Opinions Differ" style of journalism; avoiding "a slanted story" by not actually distinguishing between fact and falsehood.
  • EnochEnoch Shipmate
    @Makepeace unless I've misunderstood you completely, it's fairly clear that you're confusing the opinions of people with reality. All four of your truths and falsehoods are in the former realm, opinions people hold, not in the objective realm that most people would call reality.

  • Some people are completely wrong most of the time. They include people who are Marxists and people who are Fascists. Reality has a left wing bias? Nice line, but I don't FINK so.
  • Workers, natural resources, and growing plants produce wealth. Nothing else ever has. Capitalism is a way to redistribute it.
  • DafydDafyd Shipmate
    Makepeace wrote: »
    The point is that even where there has been state intervention it is capitalist free market that have produced the wealth. Living standards were far lower in Chine before the decision to liberalise markets there.
    China is still a society with almost total state involvement in the economy.

    The evidence is that what creates wealth is not pure state intervention and not pure free market control, but a mixture of the two.
    If you start from total state control and free the market up a bit then you can say that it is the addition of capitalist free market elements that have made wealth. But equally if you start from a position of near total capitalist free market and add state intervention, as with the New Deal or the UK welfare state, then you might say that it was the state intervention that made the wealth. The point is that you want a mixture and the mixture that you want has considerably more state intervention than is considered mainstream in the UK at the moment.
  • Here's The Daily Show interviewing people at the Million MAGA March (actual attendance ~10,000) explaining why Donald Trump really won more votes than Joe Biden in 2020. It does not seem particularly coherent, but it does demonstrate the liberal bias of reality. I particularly liked the guy who said you can't count votes from California, because the idea that California is an American state is apparently another example of how reality is biased.
  • That sounds like the woman from major car rental company who told us the warranty was void because we'd taken the car out of the nation ... a tyre had gone bald and the shocks were soft, and we were phoning from New Mexico (which the woman on the other end of the phone was convinced was a country to the south of the USA). I'm not claiming that's biased reality, just ignorance or trying to get one over a gullible Brit who considered a few days driving largely on interstates shouldn't result in the shocks going or the tyre's wearing too thin to be safe.
  • orfeoorfeo Shipmate
    Reality says that amongst wealthier countries, it is the more left-leaning ones that consistently do better on a bunch of quantitative and qualitative measures than the right-leaning ones.

    I don't think it's controversial to say that the USA leans further to the right than other high income countries in a variety of ways. But the land of the free market just doesn't get the same results on really basic things like life expectancy, which for the first time is going backwards. As has been mentioned above, the time when the USA really did lead the world was a couple of generations back when the USA was not as right-wing as it is now.
  • HugalHugal Shipmate
    edited November 2020
    The markets have provided wealth to some and not to others. I know I have said it before but if it were not for Markets forcing down prices there would be no need for fair trade and similar. If capitalism was all good there would be no need for food banks. If capitalism provided what was needed there would be no need to for governments to sub low wages. Capitalism is ultimately pro capitalism. As soon as a disaster hits businesses it is the government that pull it from the brink.
    I am not anti capitalism as such. I used to have shares in Disneyland Paris until Disney bought us out. Capitalism cannot be left to run free.
    As to reality. Reality has a different meaning for different people.
  • mousethief wrote: »
    Workers, natural resources, and growing plants produce wealth. Nothing else ever has. Capitalism is a way to redistribute it.

    Consider the first great project in United States history -- the Erie Canal. A huge amount of economic growth sprang from that. Are you suggesting that it would have been dug by the workers with or without New York state investing the huge amount of capital needed for the project? That just doesn't make sense to me. You can argue that there are various ways to get the capital for an enterprise (and the Erie Canal seems to be an interesting case in point for such a discussion), but without the initial investment providing the energy of activation I am hard-pressed to see the trio you list as having accomplished this feat.
  • RussRuss Shipmate
    mousethief wrote: »
    Workers, natural resources, and growing plants produce wealth. Nothing else ever has. Capitalism is a way to redistribute it.

    Conventional economics has it that it is the combination of land capital and labour that produces wealth.
  • "land capital" = theft of the commons.
  • RussRuss Shipmate
    So I missed out a comma...
  • orfeo wrote: »
    ...the time when the USA really did lead the world was a couple of generations back...

    Ah, the golden age, when was that again?

  • DafydDafyd Shipmate
    One could rephrase land, capital, and labour as land, labour, and proceeds of past labour.
  • The reality of the gospel certainly has a left wing bias.
  • lilbuddhalilbuddha Shipmate
    edited November 2020
    Hugal wrote: »
    The markets have provided wealth to some and not to others.
    It is those to whom it brings wealth that write/influence the laws and regulations
  • Martin54 wrote: »
    orfeo wrote: »
    ...the time when the USA really did lead the world was a couple of generations back...

    Ah, the golden age, when was that again?
    There is no true golden age, but that doesn't mean there haven't been times where the economics were better balanced.
  • lilbuddha wrote: »
    Martin54 wrote: »
    orfeo wrote: »
    ...the time when the USA really did lead the world was a couple of generations back...

    Ah, the golden age, when was that again?
    There is no true golden age, but that doesn't mean there haven't been times where the economics were better balanced.

    Aye, under FDR for a start. There must be an infographic showing egalitarianism's rise and fall?
  • Gramps49 wrote: »
    Republicans tend to discount climate change because it will hurt the economy. Democrats want to address climate change in order to save the economy.

    I think it's more accurate to say that Republicans say it will hurt the economy now, while Democrats say they are trying to save the economy of a hundred or more years in the future.
  • Hugal wrote: »
    I know I have said it before but if it were not for Markets forcing down prices there would be no need for fair trade and similar.

    If it were not for Markets forcing down prices then everyone - most especially the poor - would be considerably worse off in terms of the resources, services and goods to which they can gain access.
  • Hugal wrote: »
    I know I have said it before but if it were not for Markets forcing down prices there would be no need for fair trade and similar.

    If it were not for Markets forcing down prices then everyone - most especially the poor - would be considerably worse off in terms of the resources, services and goods to which they can gain access.

    But their affordability is also affected by poor people's incomes, and the push to keep prices low depresses wages of their producers. It's no help to me if potatoes are sixpence a hundredweight if in order for them to be that price I'm paid three farthings every other month to make the potato sacks.
  • Hugal wrote: »
    I know I have said it before but if it were not for Markets forcing down prices there would be no need for fair trade and similar.

    If it were not for Markets forcing down prices then everyone - most especially the poor - would be considerably worse off in terms of the resources, services and goods to which they can gain access.

    The poor who consume resources, services and goods are not some separate category from the poor who produce resources, services and goods. They are one and the same. Low prices benefits only the already-wealthy who consume the most. Fair pay - reducing profits for capital is included in that - benefits the poorest the most.
  • Aye, that's the gospel.
  • Russ wrote: »
    mousethief wrote: »
    Workers, natural resources, and growing plants produce wealth. Nothing else ever has. Capitalism is a way to redistribute it.

    Conventional economics has it that it is the combination of land (,) capital and labour that produces wealth.

    I think most economists agree with this (n.b. current writer is not an economist). Where they begin to differ is over which of the three required categories should get the reward for producing the wealth.
  • Doc Tor wrote: »
    The poor who consume resources, services and goods are not some separate category from the poor who produce resources, services and goods. They are one and the same. Low prices benefits only the already-wealthy who consume the most.

    Yes, and also no. Low prices achieved by efficiency savings (eg mechanization) also benefit both the remaining workers who run the machines, and the workers who are replaced by machines, under the assumption that they find something else to do. Low prices achieved by exploiting the downtrodden masses behave rather as you describe. Low prices achieved by importing cheap shit from whichever developing country offers the cheapest labour could go either way when you consider domestic workers, but is clearly exploitative when you also consider the foreign workers.
  • When I was a lad, futurists promised us all fully automated luxury space communism. And we could have some of that (working one or two days a week, perhaps). Instead, we ended up with a dystopian hypercapitalist death spiral where those who work are over-worked, and those who don't are destitute, overseen by billionaires in their Elysium.
  • Martin54 wrote: »
    lilbuddha wrote: »
    There is no true golden age, but that doesn't mean there haven't been times where the economics were better balanced.
    Aye, under FDR for a start. There must be an infographic showing egalitarianism's rise and fall?

    Economists have coined the term the Great Compression* to indicate the compression of the upper and lower tiers of American wages to be closer to each other. This was from the early 1940s through the late 1970s. This was accomplished through strong unionism, progressive taxation, and vigorous anti-trust enforcement. In other words, the sorts of things that are anathema to most modern conservatives.


    *Any large-scale economic phenomenon will have the modifier "Great" applied to it by economists if they can get away with it.
  • Especially if it ends with "ession".
  • Dave W wrote: »
    Especially if it ends with "ession".

    Indeed. And make sure not to get the Great Compression confused with the Great Contraction.
  • HugalHugal Shipmate
    edited November 2020
    Hugal wrote: »
    I know I have said it before but if it were not for Markets forcing down prices there would be no need for fair trade and similar.

    If it were not for Markets forcing down prices then everyone - most especially the poor - would be considerably worse off in terms of the resources, services and goods to which they can gain access.

    But lots are. The food banks I have mentioned are proof of that. If you are working full time and cannot afford to feed your family something is wrong. If you have two full time incomes abs still can’t afford to get a house then something is wrong.
    Lower prices do cause the producers of say, coffee, chocolate and bananas to suffer, forces children into work and not school. Allows children to be made to use dangerous equipment.
    Producer in the west say their profits are being tightened so that are making substantially less than they did. That affects people’s lives.
    The markets and therefore capitalism just sees cost and profit.
    If you are happy with that ok.
  • Doc Tor wrote: »
    The poor who consume resources, services and goods are not some separate category from the poor who produce resources, services and goods. They are one and the same. Low prices benefits only the already-wealthy who consume the most.

    Yes, and also no. Low prices achieved by efficiency savings (eg mechanization) also benefit both the remaining workers who run the machines, a
    The workers there's now an oversupply of? How?
  • jay_emm wrote: »
    Yes, and also no. Low prices achieved by efficiency savings (eg mechanization) also benefit both the remaining workers who run the machines, . . .
    The workers there's now an oversupply of? How?
    . . . and the workers who are replaced by machines, under the assumption that they find something else to do.

    Assume a can opener.
  • RussRuss Shipmate
    KarlLB wrote: »
    But their affordability is also affected by poor people's incomes, and the push to keep prices low depresses wages of their producers. It's no help to me if potatoes are sixpence a hundredweight if in order for them to be that price I'm paid three farthings every other month to make the potato sacks.

    It's clearly true that if what you produce is potato sacks then the first-round effect of a fall in the price of potato sacks is that you're worse off. But if sacks of potatoes are then cheaper, then all the consumers of potatoes who don't work in the potato industry are (first round) better off.

    You're right that it's little consolation to you that the potatoes you can buy are cheaper, because (first round) everything else still costs the same, and the whole of your income has been cut.

    Then all the feedback loops and second-round effects kick in. More sacks of potatoes are sold (because there's more demand at the lower price). So some of the farmers will grow more potatoes (and if they're working at full capacity, that means they have to grow less of something else. Like maybe turnips. So the price of turnips goes up).

    But your ability to buy other products (like maybe cheese) has decreased, so the price and volume of cheese produced goes down...

    The likelihood is that when everything settles into a new equilibrium (or new trajectory if the underlying rates of change are such that equilibrium is never reached) you'll still be worse off. But whether the overall net change is that everybody is on average a little better off or a little worse off is hard to predict.

    Unless you know better ?
  • Martin54 wrote: »
    The reality of the gospel certainly has a left wing bias.

    I would say that the gospel includes both elements of right and left. On the one hand the gospel presupposes a radical equality that none of the conventional barriers to inclusion such as income, social status or ethnicity can exclude a believer from God's kingdom. Most people would perceive this equality as left-wing. On the other hand there is a radical belief that there must be a penalty for sin. Most people would interpret judgment as right-wing. I can't pretend to be able to fully comprehend the ineffable nature of justice, but it seems to me that the gospel unites those parts of left and right that thirst for justice.

    Many on the political left thirst for the eradication of the injustice that arises from inequality. Many on the political right thirst for the justice that arises from having freedom.

    For me the nobility of many on the left rests on their love of equality whilst the nobility of many on the right rests on their love of freedom. At the same time the scourge of the left is their cynicism that cannot trust people enough to give them freedom whilst the scourge of the right is the narcissism that arises from a sense of entitlement. People just ain't perfect.
  • Simon ToadSimon Toad Shipmate
    edited November 2020
    The arguments on this thread presuppose that "right wing" is fairly represented by the politics of the Republican Party in its present iteration or, perhaps, the neo-liberalism of the last thirty years.

    I don't think this is fair. Conservatives have in the past governed economic systems that can properly be described as mixed economies. Why can't those conservatives represent the "right wing"?

    I think we are presently in a phase where the right of politics is led by extremists, not by people who can be described as representing the mainstream. This is as unfair as using a Marxist writer for Green Left magazine to represent the left.

    The Trump Presidency demonstrates that the GOP is an extreme, proto-fascist party in its current iteration. It is no longer a suitable representative of right wing politics.
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