At a glance, policies such as high/progressive taxation, social benefits, regulation of large corporation, economic equality, etc. appear to benefit the less wealthy more than the wealthy. But in the US, the blue states tend to be in richer states, such as NY and California. Why is that?
Ask Willie Sutton.
That’s where the money is…which is bizarre that they are more likely to be the ones to use it to benefit the less fortunate. Hence the OP, I’d wager.
It’s possible that progressive ideas work. Maybe it’s not wealthy states adopting progressive policies. Maybe it’s states that adopt progressive policies become wealthy.
It is a natural tendency for richer areas to become more progressive. It is not only in the US. European countries also become more progressive with increased wealth. Whenever economic troubles hit is when this progressive tendency comes under threat.
A better question is why do so many poor rural communities, ones where half the population get government support, trend conservative?
It is very odd that the federal government makes taxpayers in states like California pay for the crazy checks and food stamps for people in states like West Virginia. And the Californians seem to support it and the West Virginians constantly bitch about it.
People rich in money, education and cultural capital can afford to not give a fuck about nation and country and patriotism, and indeed religion and all the other pursuits that silly poor and uneducated people are concerned about. Richness opens up other options afforded to them by money, education, and connections. The poor uneducated guy can’t just go and fetch himself a plush job at he UN, or a multinational corporation or some international do-good organisation. Besides more poor people have actually spilled blood in wars for the sake of the nation; perhaps they want it to have meant something.
Progressive/left-leaning are also usually pro-immigration and immigration usually benefits the upper echelons of society the most, whereas the poorer segments harvest most of the trouble. Both with regard to increased competition on low-pay and low-skilled jobs, and with such things as housing and integration, etc. Nothing in the world worse than a progressive guy living in an upscale gated community.
Progressive/left-leaning is not merely a set of economic redistribution ideas, it encompasses a whole set of cultural values which by the holders of these values often appear to be universal and universal good, for which reason they are fostered on other segments of society. Which however may not share in those values, and which in fact may resent the intrusion and smug arrogance held in the belief that the values are universal and superior.
Because so-called progressive ideas work, while conservative ideas fail disastrously. I say “so called” because in reality we are talking about the moderate right against the extreme right; there is no left wing/progressive movement of significance in America. It’s all Right of one type or another.
Richer states can afford to outlaw voluntary exchanges to a greater extent than poorer ones.
Also, richer states are richer because they have large, economically powerful cities. Large city means machine politics. Machine politics means progressive legislation.
Or maybe states with conservative ideas become wealthy, then progressives leech them into bankruptcy.
Consider how the states rank:
One policy here stands out far above the rest: Outlawing, or at least discouraging, slavery. There is a strong relationship between how long it has been since slavery was widespread in a state, and how wealthy it is.
Race discrimination also made states poorer by reducing productive utilization of the workforce. I use the past tense not because discrimination is eliminated, but because I’m unsure if is still much greater in the former slave states than elsewhere.
One current policy shifting money from conservative to liberal states is progressive state acceptance of medicaid expansion AKA cooperation with Obamacare. While Affordable Care Act refusal is a foolish own-goal for red states, it hasn’t been in place long enough to affect incomes.
Some other progressive policies (say, free higher education) might also make a state wealthier, but I don’t think the wealthy states ever adopted them consistently enough to support your thesis.
Slavery remains the biggie.
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Not really.
Communism and socialism ended up taking off in middle income countries (and are most popular in middle income countries today, e.g. Latin America and the former Soviet Union) than in wealthy ones.
Sure: but since slave states had their infrastructure and capital hurt to a greater degree in the Civil War than the free states did, that could be the actual cause…as opposed to concluding that slavery hurt the development of wealth.
Also these cities have huge blocks of minority voters who vote overwhelmingly Democratic. If you take away the poor, inner city voters then all of the states you mention have Republican majorities.
Another poster mentioned how California voters give West Virginia voters welfare benefits. I disagree. It’s not the rich Californians who are voting that way. The rich Californians vote Republican. The poor California voters vote to give themselves AND poor West Virginians welfare benefits. It’s just that California has a larger minority (and therefore a more reliable Democratic base) population that allows for liberal policies to prevail.
Not really true, although more true of SoCal than NorCal. Many of those “San Francisco Liberals” are pretty damn wealthy. And, of course, those Hollywood types are known for supporting very liberal policies.
The SF Bay Area is full of wealthy Democratic voters. Have you ever been here?
And lets not forget that poorer people are less likely to vote. You get votes by appealing to the Middle Class.
In general, holdng other things equal, richer people are more likely to vote Republican than poor people. Not as much as in the past, but still. (Highly educated people, Jews, Hindus etc. are more likely to vote Democrat, and wealthy people are more likely to be one of those, but still, the average rich person is more likely Republican than the average poor one).
Hollywood actors are a trivial number of people, and aren’t really representative of all that much.
Right. The impression that is left by the OP is that blue states are full of wealthy people, voting for liberal policies, giving freely of their bounty, yet continuing to prosper under progressive social and economic policy, while those stodgy red states are full of poor people who stubbornly support right wing economic policies against their own interests.
The truth is that as a rule the wealthy lean heavily Republican, the middle class skew Republican, and the poor are overwhelmingly Democratic.
The wealthier states naturally will have large urban areas which bring large numbers of inner city poor. The Breshnevian majorities that these inner city poor give the Democrats overcomes the GOP majority in the rest of the state.
I wasn’t aware that Texas and Florida were progressive states.
I did not mean places such as Latin America(and I did not mean communism). I was talking about relatively stable democracies. There does seem to be a correlation between wealth growth and the growth of progressive policies within the capitalist system. That it is not a peculiarly American phenomenon. It’s as true of Europe as it is of the States.
Lets not forget that individuals in States with a high income tax are subsidized by other States. I believe there is a Federal tax break for those paying high taxes in States such as NY and California(if im wrong then I apologize). In that situation States with low taxes are giving money to the high tax states.