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Identity politics

2018-10-23 17:36:49.816815+00 by Dan Lyke 4 comments

Discussion in another forum is helping me distill some ideas, and the notion that identity politics is the recognition that bigotry means more to people than money, and that this explains so many of the places where economics fails to predict behavior, is super powerful.

Quote without attribution for now:

... the economists (and libertarians) just assume that money matters more to people than being bigoted does. They are manifestly wrong about this.

Certainly there are plenty of examples to support this perspective.

[ related topics: Politics Community Currency Economics ]

comments in ascending chronological order (reverse):

#Comment Re: Identity politics made: 2018-10-24 02:22:47.822949+00 by: Larry Burton

Bigotry isn't a conscious act but a part of one's personality. The bigot can't turn on and off their bigotry and don't recognize when it is getting in the way of economic opportunities.

#Comment Re: Identity politics made: 2018-10-24 15:30:52.442945+00 by: Dan Lyke

Yeah, the other side of that is investigating how much of economic success is linked to group identity rather than productivity.

#Comment Re: Identity politics made: 2018-10-25 14:07:54.110946+00 by: TheSHAD0W [edit history]

> ...assume that money matters more to people than being bigoted does

If by "matters" you mean "troubles them more", yup, that explains the psychology.

If by "matters" you mean "is more important in a physical sense", then that's absolutely incorrect. We still live in a scarcity-based environment no matter what the Marxists dream. There's a hell of a lot more flex in the economy now compared to a century ago but it's still possible to knock it over. Look at Zimbabwe or Cambodia, as examples of what happens when you subordinate needs to feelings.

#Comment Re: Identity politics made: 2018-10-26 16:06:24.225352+00 by: Dan Lyke

Actually, I was thinking more in terms of under-utilized potential: People are more than willing to let their prejudices override economic potential (as we're discovering with what happens when companies adopt deliberately inclusive practices, all of a sudden they've got a cheaper better labor force because of market forces previously discounting that labor force).

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