From Tyler Cowen of Marginal Revolution: What are the core differences between Republicans and Democrats?
First, the meta-narrative…look at the impressive share stats on the bottom. Why was this article so popular. This seems to tie into the post-2013 centrism boom; instead of taking sides, presenting everything from the perspective omnipotent, somewhat impartial observer who pokes holes into the arguments of both sides.
Scott Adams’ blog has also seen an explosion in popularity since 2015, with Scott casting himself as a hyper-rational pro-Trump centrist and expert on human behavioral psychology, in a sea of ‘moist robots‘.
Another distinction but not mentioned by Tyler, is that Republicans ‘the right’, as well as rationalists, tend to believe in a ‘natural order’ [2] or hierarchy of society and people [1] ; for welfare liberals, such order may not exist or the state should ‘force’ order through wealth redistribution and entitlement spending to create a more equal outcome. Libertarian-leaning ideologies believe that ‘order’ tends to be inevitable (as a consequence of intrinsic individual differences), and should be forced by a state or organization.
[1] For traditionalist republicans, such an order may be parochial, familial, or patriarchal. For HBD, neoconservatives, rationalist right, and some classical liberals, the ‘order’ may be economic and or biological (Darwinian Conservatism and Social Darwinism, rejection of ‘blank slate’)
[2] To clarify, I delineate between two types of ‘order’ – natural (such ans HBD, Social Darwinism), and constructed (societal, families, patriarchal/matriarchal, government). Economic ‘order’ may be a mixture of both, in that smarter people tend to rise to the top in free market economies.
Or as below:
HBD conservative /rationalist right – biological (HBD and biological determinism) and economic ‘order’ , free market capitalism (Social Darwinism)
Traditionalist conservative – religious, nationalist, and family ‘order’, less HBD, less free market capitalism
Neoconservative – same as above but more free market capitalism (market ‘order’)
Welfare liberal, communist – reject biological and economic order; support re-distributive state ‘order’
Socialist Libertarian, anarchist syndicalist, post-structuralism, Frankfurt School – tend to reject biological, nationalist, and economic order
Classical liberal, neoliberal, rationalist left – ‘order’ may be biological and or economic , as well as ‘order’ through institutions like police and military (similar to conservatives).
The left and right share many similarities in supporting ‘order’, with only the far-left as a major outlier, which is probably why many on the extreme ends of the political spectrum perceive both the mainstream ‘left’ and ‘right’ as being the same. An article by Fredrik deBoer Democrats always prove the commies right is an example of far-left’s dissatisfaction with the mainstream ‘left’. However, many academics on the ‘left’ tend to wary of authoritarian Marxism, preferring libertarian Marxism/Socialism, knowing that under authoritarian far-left regimes the intelligentsia tend to be persecuted.
Related:
Classification of Ideologies
Neo Masculinity and Christianity, Darwinian Conservatism, Free Will, Biological Reality