Do People Tend to Become More Conservative as They Grow Older?

Great Debates
41

[QUOTE=Cyberhwk]
It would be extremely hard to parse out political viewpoints from demographics. People get older. As others have mentioned people also start accumulating wealth. But the world is also getting much smaller with newer technology, the economy is always changing, society is always changing, with such fluid change, I really don’t see how we could get a firm answer.

With that being SAID, I’m going with accumulation of wealth driving political views, not age. When young, you’re looking for a helping hand in getting started and a safety net as you get your sea legs in society. Once you’ve grown older, you have an established and steady job and personal life, you’re able to catch yourself and no longer feel like you should pay for that safety net that you’re no longer using.
[/QUOTE]

There is something in that, but I would argue that there is also an increasing knowledge of the downsides of dependance. After all, the aged may indeed expect in some cases to depend on the social safety net.

Most people, when they are young, more or less expect that parents will take care of them - and resent it somewhat when they do not.

As they transition into independence, they conciously or not hope for that role to continue - if not filled by their parents, then by the state.

However, once true independence has been achieved, they very often realize the true value of having achieved it at least in part through their own efforts. This is something that only experience can provide. Anyone can understand the urge to feed the hungry and house the homeless, but the ongoing value of feeding and housing yourself is something that only doing can really demonstrate - after all, all the resources necessary to feed and house other must ultimately derive from the surplus of those doing so for themselves.

Moreover, by that time, a person will likely have known personally some examples both of those truly in need, and those simply unwilling to strive.

This does not lead necessarily to dislike socialism, but rather to appreciate its cost - security at the price of a hefty tax on the productive, and dis-incentives to being productive in those so inclined. Also, by that age, most people will have experienced the inefficiencies and corruptions that any form of wealth redistribution leads to.

Which again is not to say that they will oppose socialist measures - the good may in many cases outweigh these factors. Just that they will likely be more wary of them.

As for social conservatism - I do think that most people’s attitudes are formed early and often do not change radically. If society as a whole is growing more socially liberal over time, older folk will appear more socially conservative - but the reverse could also be true.

42

Boetcker’s list was written in 1916, for the generation that had seen the presidents of the US and France as well as the Empress of Austria-Hungary and dozens of lesser folk murdered by Anarchists. The Right Wing saw the opportunity of lumping Socialism with Anarchism (much as today they’ve lumped Liberalism with Socilaism), and succeeded in drawing the Populists, Progressives, Grangers, etc. toward the Right.

My point being that it’s not so much a matter of an evolution of personal philosophy, but some opportunist working an angle for consumption by the average person so overwhelmed by the pressures of youth or the responsibillities of maturity that they grasp at these angles.

(yes, I’ve become more skeptical as I’ve aged)

43

(a related tidbit of trivia, coincidental to my location: the hallmark of the anti-Socialist movment on the early 20th C. was the Palmer Raids and deportation of 248 Socialists, including Emma Goldman, to the newly-formed Soviet Union. The ship charted for this voyage was the SS Buford. Years later, as the ship was about to be scrapped, it was rented by Buster Keaton for his movie The Navigator, about two spoiled rich people who find themselves stranded on a huge yacht and are forced to become self-sufficient.)

44

I’m bumping this zombie thread because the other one was closed (party due to me being snarky in the wrong forum, sorry about that) and I thought this was interesting.

45

You become conservative as you acquire things to conserve.

That said, as I’ve become more prosperous, I’ve moved more towards the left. Of course I was starting from a point that was so far right, I had to move left from it: when I was 12, William Buckley ran for Mayor of my town (against two liberals) and because he was witty while they were dull and serious, I supported him. Since then, I’ve acquired some small ability to understand each position, and it’s frankly been increasingly rare that I don’t see the Pubbie candidate as a nutter barking out silly nonsense to excite and agitate his rabid supporters, so it’s not really very close, most of the time. I like to say that I think through the issues, but most of the time, there really aren’t any valid issues coming from the right, just hatred, fear, prejudice, and self-congratulations, none of which moves me very much.

46

I think it depends on the person. I was born in 1930 and I am more liberal than I was in my 40’s. I think life experiences have taught me that being too conservative is not for me, and most of my friends are also more liberal.

Monavis

47

Except that almost no one is so poor that you can’t frighten them into thinking the government wants to take away their stuff and give it to someone even poorer. As a campaign strategy it works pretty well.

48

The OP question is very broad. What definitions are we using here? Because even if we have a settled definition of political conservatism, and we don’t, are we controlling for the moderating effect of gaining life experience which can’t be neatly packaged into conservative cognition, values or ideology? Some of that moderating effect may overlap with conservative definitions, but isn’t it arguably a a category error confuse, say pragmatism and new facts, with a sufficient and meaningful embrace of conservatism?

Also, what about moral politics and reasoning? The OP’s question is often proffered by as an attempt to paint conservative convergence as symbol of validity - ie. the “liberals mugged by reality” narrative. But is it really a proper question to attribute significance to the arbitrary swings and roundabouts of political views, if some like a Kohlberg scales of moral reasoning is true? The Kohlberg scale places the highest level of development with abstract universalism, which is a hugely liberal/progressive correlated approach to moral problems. If that were true, the force of the convergence narrative is at least party irrelevant because conservative moral politics are necessarily truncated and undeveloped?

These are not simple issues.

Ugh, sounds like pop-folklore wisdom being used as a stalking horse for supply side economics. Applied in the modern context, it essentially tries to equate progressive taxation with theft and adds in some vague conservative virtues ethics which echo prosperity doctrine.

49

I think that in addition to accumulating wealth, people often collect some misfortunes and tragedies as they age. “Can’t happen to me and mine” goes out the window over time, as things DO happen to them and theirs, making some people risk-averse and generally fearful.

50

You cannot muse any further on any of these Truths, lest your brain rot in a cesspool of communism. Stop thinking! Stop NOW!!!

51

Not really; not in recent times at least. These days, if you are poor when you are young, you’ll probably be poor when you are old; if you are middle class when young, you’ll probably be middle class or poor when old. There isn’t much social mobility anymore except down.

52

This statement is completely contradictory to my experience.

Some anecdotes:

My wife’s family was dirt poor. My wife put herself through college/nursing school, and now makes a very good living.

I was raised middle class, but with three sisters, we did not have much money for luxuries. I got an ROTC scholarship and an engineering degree, and make a good living. One of my sisters got an MBA and makes lots of money in finance. Another sister had three kids before she was 25, never finished college, and struggles financially (supported by other family members).

My half-brother, stepsister, and stepbrother were raised by my father (a physician) and my stepmother. My father, raised in poverty by a single mother, put himself through college and medical school. My stepsiblings were spoiled rotten, barely finished college (taking an average of 8 years), and are still not self-sufficient (even though they are in their 20s and 30s).

In my experience, all of the social mobility in my family has come down to individual talents and choices in life.

(Sorry for the hijack. )

Back to the OP, I was raised in a military family, attended college in Texas, and joined the military myself. I supported the Republicans because I was fiscally conservative, supported the military, and opposed gun control. However, I was socially liberal (and even had a political button with the slogan “Republicans for Choice”).

My positions have not changed, but the Republican party has looked less and less attractive to me as they have abandoned their policy of fiscal conservatism, decimated our military in a pointless war in Iraq, and generally been incompetent.

My voting pattern has therefore shifted left in recent years.

53

Seems like a long way to go to say ‘Don’t touch my stuff.’

54

I grew up in the 60’s and my father was a Republican who got less and less comfortable with Nixon and Vietnam. Eventually he even voted for McGovern. A lot of my friends had similar experiences with their parents.

55

To elaborate, I’ve become much more socially liberal, and more economically conservative.

I suspect economic conservatism tends to increase with age (on average, obviously, not for everyone) for much the same reason a kid would like to buy an XBox 360, Playstation 3, Wii and 700 games, and their parents would prefer not to get a second mortgage to buy video games; because the more you’re responsible for finances, the more careful you are with money. As you advance towards your top income earning years, it’s increasingly YOU the government hits up for cash every time they want to spend money. Until I was out of university, I effectively paid no income tax at all, so I was a huge net taker from the government; more government spending was okey dokey with me. Now I’m a net contributor, so it’s not in my best interest that the government spend a lot of money.

Interestingly enough, this trend seems to partially reverse; senior citizens are VERY liberal when it comes to government spending that goes to senior citizens.

Social conservatism or liberalism, however, seems to go in either direction. As I mentioned I’m more socially liberal than I’ve ever been, and I know many folks who seem to get more liberal as they age; but I also know many folks who get more socially conservative as they age. I’m not sure why some people go in one direction and some in the other and I don’t really see any pattern to it. Sam Stone may be correct in his idea that people will tend to move towards a more reasonable position as they age, if they held very strict or radical ones as a youth. But that only applies to people who were ever radically right or left; some people are apathetic about politics in their youth.

[QUOTE=Der Trihs]
Not really; not in recent times at least. These days, if you are poor when you are young, you’ll probably be poor when you are old; if you are middle class when young, you’ll probably be middle class or poor when old. There isn’t much social mobility anymore except down.
[/QUOTE]

Cite, please?

Obviously some people start and end poor. But some start poor and end rich, or middle class, or what have you. Do you have any actualy data regarding class mobility? This obviously is not a “yes/no” thing, so it’s silly to pretend otherwise.

56

I’m going to need a cite on this. Specifically that the majority of poor children in the US remain poor into old age, and that this is a new phenomenon, and that the majority of social mobility in the US is downward into poverty.

[Americans of all classes often move up and down the economic ladder depending on their personal circumstances and the state of the economy at a given moment:

* After one year, about one-third of workers in the bottom income quintile move to a higher one; about one-quarter of those in the top quintile move to a lower one.
* Only 29 percent of workers remain in the same income quintile after 15 years.
* On average, individuals can expect to move from the 20 th percentile of the earnings distribution at the beginning of their career to about the 60 th percentile during their peak earning years.

What is more interesting is that economic mobility increases with each generation. For instance:

* Less than one third (31 percent) of children are in the same income quintile as their parents.
* Income differences between high and low income earners tend to disappear by the third generation, on average.](http://taxesandgrowth.ncpa.org/news/are-the-poor-staying-poor)

Regards,
Shodan

57

I may be an exception to the rule, but I’ve gotten increasingly liberal as I’ve gotten older (I’m about to be 40). Four years ago, I voted for my first Democratic governor ever, and next month I’ll be voting for my first Democratic presidential candidate ever.

I’m still pretty conservative on some hot-button issues (abortion and marriage, mainly) but increasingly liberal on other social issues (envirnment, gun control, death penalty, immigration) and practically a socialist when it comes to taxes and fiscal policy.