Arkady
President
Last week I posted about both public health and education. What I found fascinating is how closely the two issues tracked. In both cases, the US trailed other wealthy nations, but in both cases there was a huge disparity between the best US states (which would rank among the top nations), and the worst (with rankings that sometimes put them alongside poverty-stricken third-world nations). And, interestingly, the successes and failures on the two lists were mostly identical. The states that do well are, for the most part, deep-blue states (plus, oddly, Utah), while the states that do poorly are the deep red states. Internationally, the leading countries tend to be liberal ones, as well (Northern and Western Continental Europe, plus Canada and Japan), while the countries that do poorly tend to be conservative.
If you take a look at social and economic mobility stats, you'll see the same pattern:
http://www.salon.com/2013/07/22/blue_states_are_better_for_upward_mobility/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_mobility
http://www.verisi.com/resources/prosperity-upward-mobility.htm
Within the US, the places where the bad luck of being born poor matters least include cities in the deep blue states (plus, oddly Utah), while internationally the countries that are doing best at fostering economic mobility are liberal ones like Canada and the countries of Scandinavia.
It's remarkable that these things tend to line up so neatly. You might have been tempted to guess that this wouldn't happen -- that, for example, the prescriptive governmental approach that gives rise to good public health would also burden entrepreneurship, thereby driving down social mobility; or that spending more on education would pull money away from health care, worsening statistics like life expectancy. But, instead, we see that the same states, countries, and regions tend to do well almost without regard to what aspect of life you look at, while states, countries, and regions that are in shambles in one factor tend to be in shambles nearly across the board.
As I mentioned, there's a high degree of correlation between socioeconomic success and liberalism. The question is why. Why does conservatism so often go arm-in-arm with dystopian societies like the American Deep South, portions of Latin America, and the Middle East? Why does liberalism tend to coincide with social and economic systems that have their act together?
The answer isn't immediately obvious. Maybe it's that liberal policies are simply better, so that when liberals run the show, you get great outcomes like Sweden, Canada, and Massachusetts. Or maybe it's that social dysfunction breeds paranoia, so that conservatism is an effect, not a cause. That makes some sense, since the uglier the society around you seems, the less you're going to want to yoke yourself to those people by way of "we're all in this together" liberal policies. Or maybe there's some other factor, like hot climates being bad for the brain, driving people in Mississippi and Saudi Arabia a bit nuts (a scary notion, in light of global warming).
I'm not sure what, exactly, is going on. However, it does strike me as reasonable to at least operate on the theory that liberal policies might be partly responsible for the good outcomes in liberal areas. That makes far more sense than the conservative approach of trying to drive US policy farther away from the models we see in countries and states where things are actually going well.
If you take a look at social and economic mobility stats, you'll see the same pattern:
http://www.salon.com/2013/07/22/blue_states_are_better_for_upward_mobility/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_mobility
http://www.verisi.com/resources/prosperity-upward-mobility.htm
Within the US, the places where the bad luck of being born poor matters least include cities in the deep blue states (plus, oddly Utah), while internationally the countries that are doing best at fostering economic mobility are liberal ones like Canada and the countries of Scandinavia.
It's remarkable that these things tend to line up so neatly. You might have been tempted to guess that this wouldn't happen -- that, for example, the prescriptive governmental approach that gives rise to good public health would also burden entrepreneurship, thereby driving down social mobility; or that spending more on education would pull money away from health care, worsening statistics like life expectancy. But, instead, we see that the same states, countries, and regions tend to do well almost without regard to what aspect of life you look at, while states, countries, and regions that are in shambles in one factor tend to be in shambles nearly across the board.
As I mentioned, there's a high degree of correlation between socioeconomic success and liberalism. The question is why. Why does conservatism so often go arm-in-arm with dystopian societies like the American Deep South, portions of Latin America, and the Middle East? Why does liberalism tend to coincide with social and economic systems that have their act together?
The answer isn't immediately obvious. Maybe it's that liberal policies are simply better, so that when liberals run the show, you get great outcomes like Sweden, Canada, and Massachusetts. Or maybe it's that social dysfunction breeds paranoia, so that conservatism is an effect, not a cause. That makes some sense, since the uglier the society around you seems, the less you're going to want to yoke yourself to those people by way of "we're all in this together" liberal policies. Or maybe there's some other factor, like hot climates being bad for the brain, driving people in Mississippi and Saudi Arabia a bit nuts (a scary notion, in light of global warming).
I'm not sure what, exactly, is going on. However, it does strike me as reasonable to at least operate on the theory that liberal policies might be partly responsible for the good outcomes in liberal areas. That makes far more sense than the conservative approach of trying to drive US policy farther away from the models we see in countries and states where things are actually going well.
