Smashing out through the trashcan of ideology: people who believe that inequality serves the interests of the rich are far more likely to support redistribution. de Pony Sum Follow Nov 18, 2018 · 2 min read

I.

Data from the 2008 general social survey reveals that those who believe that “Inequality serves the interests of the Rich” were three times more likely to support redistribution than oppose it(1). Meanwhile those who disagree are four-and-a-half times more likely to oppose redistribution than support it, a truly massive difference as these things go.

Basically people tend to either believe that:

A) Inequality exists in the interests of the rich and redistribution is a good idea

OR

B) Inequality exists for the benefit of everyone and redistribution is a bad idea.

Thus for reasons that are fairly intuitive, you don’t get many people who think inequality exists in the interests of the rich, and redistribution is a bad idea, or many people that think inequality exists in the interests of everyone, and redistribution is a good idea.

II.

What’s the practical upshot? Perhaps if the left wishes to push re-distributive policies it needs to grapple rhetorically with the conflicts of interest that exist between economic classes.

For too long, the mainstream left has basically bought the story that inequality exists for the good of us all, whilst simultaneously supporting modest redistribution. The problem is, that very few people support this combination of ideas, which has no verisimilitude and no power to inspire.

The good news is that twice as many people agree or strongly agree with the statement: “ Inequality exists for benefit of rich” than disagree, so there’s plenty of room to make our case.

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(1) Data here: https://gssdataexplorer.norc.org/ variables used: inequal3 and eqwlth