An academic study from researchers at Brunel University London assessed 171 men, looking at their height, weight, overall physical strength and bicep circumference, along with their views on redistribution of wealth and income inequality. The study, published in the Evolution and Human Behavior journal, ​found that weaker men were more likely to favor socialist policies than stronger men.

Face it: losers like socialism because it allows them access to money and goods that they would not be able to acquire through their own powers. So it should surprise nobody that an academic study finds that poor upper body strength in males correlates with socialist views. Amanda Prestigiacomo writes at the Daily Wire :

The good professor who conducted this study, Dr. Michael Price, hypothesizes that this is based on evolutionary psychology:

"This is about our Stone Age brains, in a modern society," said Dr. Price. "Our minds evolved in environments where strength was a big determinant of success. If you find yourself in a body not threatened by other males, if you feel you can win competitions for status, then maybe you start thinking inequality is pretty good."

But, thankfully, he performed a check to see if another variable might account for the observed differences:

Taking his assessment one step further, Price wanted to factor in gym time to see if he could determine the relationship flow between strength and socialistic leanings. Are men who are naturally strong more inclined to hold capitalistic views, or are men with capitalistic views driven to go to the gym? "When Dr Price factored in time spent in the gym some, but not all, of the link disappeared," notes The Times, suggesting there may be something to men with capitalistic views hitting the gym.



"Of course this isn’t rational in modern environments, where your ability to win might have more to do with where you went to university. Lot of guys who are phenomenally successful in modern societies would probably be nowhere near as successful in hunter gatherer societies," added Price.

It is much more likely that the traits that incline people to work out also are helpful in accumulating wealth and power. And those whose efforts (you know, hard work requiring grit, persistence, and the deferral of gratification, kind of like getting up every day and dragging yourself to the gym) lead them to acquire more goods than some others are less likely to endorse distributing goods on the basis of possession of a pulse, rather than effort.

But we already knew that: