*The Myth of Left and Right*: The Last Word of Hyrum Lewis

Here’s Hyrum Lewis’ reaction to my response to his response to our interview.

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Thank you, Bryan, for this opportunity to discuss our book. I must confess, though, that for as much as I’ve enjoyed our conversation—what could be more fun than talking ideas with great intellects like Bryan Caplan, Robin Hanson, and Verlan Lewis?—I’ve found it largely unproductive thus far because we’ve been talking past each other. I take responsibility for this because I made two terminological errors that have caused confusion about what we are and are not claiming.

First error: “essentialist”

First, I made the mistake of calling the theory we oppose, “essentialist.” This led us into all kinds of interesting but ultimately irrelevant tangents about whether categories like Christian, libertarian, male, female, or Mormon have philosophical essences or whether something like “Utah” is an adequate social scientific idealization. I should have instead called the incorrect theory “monist” to indicate that our thesis is simply this: There is more than one issue in politics. That’s all. It’s not complicated nor should it even be controversial. It is common sense, just as it’s common sense that there is more than one species in biology, more than one illness in medicine, more than one element in chemistry, etc.

Second error: “social”

Second, I made the even worse mistake of calling our theory the “social theory” instead of the “pluralist theory.” This led people to think we were claiming that “Conservatives and liberals are 100% tribal and 0% principled” or, as one commenter put it, “Everyone is tribal except for those who aren’t”—an obvious tautology. We don’t believe this and if we ever said it, we were in error.

OK, so if we aren’t saying that ideologues are 100% tribal, what are we saying? Simply that social conformism explains the bundling of distinct issue positions. This is in contrast to the monist position which says that an underlying “one big issue” explains the bundling (“correlation” is the term we used in the book). In other words, we are not saying that ideologues are 100% tribal, we are saying that ideologies are 100% tribal.

Let me unpack this a bit more because it’s a subtle but crucial distinction that gets to the heart of our misunderstanding:

The monist theory persists largely because it explains the puzzling fact that seemingly unrelated issue positions tend to correlate. It does so by positing an underlying “one big issue,” such as “change.” E.g., if conservatives are more likely than the average person to favor tax cuts and oppose abortion, then there must be an underlying anti-change disposition (conservatism) causing them to hold both positions. The connection between those distinct issues is what requires explanation and the monist theory explains it by invoking “one big issue” such as “change.”

Our position, by contrast, is that this correlation can better be explained by social conformism. Pro-life and anti-tax views tend to go together because people who are pro-life are more likely to join the right-wing tribe and then adopt its tax policy as a matter of socialization. So our position on socialization is simply that tribal conformity is sufficient to explain the correlation between these distinct issues. We are not saying that ideologues are 100% tribal or that “nobody has any principles.” When we say, “100% tribal,” we are only talking about the bundling, not the people.

Let me illustrate the difference: if Mary is an uncompromising pro-life activist who believes for principled reasons that abortion is murder, then on that one issue, Mary is principled. But as a pro-lifer she will likely begin to associate with other pro-lifers, join the Republican party, identify as conservative and then adopt the other issues of that tribe as a matter of socialization—she will be more likely than the average citizen to support tax cuts, for instance. Is Mary 100% tribal then? No. When it comes to abortion, she is totally principled. She will change many of her views for social reasons, but she will never compromise on abortion. But the degree of tribalism we do see in the “Marys” of the world is sufficient to explain why pro-lifers also tend to be anti-tax. The correlation is 100% tribal even though the person, Mary, is not.

85% Agreement

Given this misunderstanding, I now see why you kept saying, “I 85% agree with you.” Our thesis (which we apparently didn’t do a good job of stating clearly) is that there is more than one issue in politics, but you can’t 85% agree that there is more than one issue in politics any more than you can 85% agree that there is more than one species in biology or more than one element in chemistry.

But now I think I get your point: you were saying that people aren’t entirely motivated by tribal conformity in the positions they hold—it’s more like 85% tribal, 15% principled.

And you know what, Bryan? If that’s what you are saying, I actually completely agree with you!

Mary is principled about abortion and if abortion constitutes about 15% of the conservative cause today (which sounds about right to me), then Bryan Caplan hit the nail on the head in saying that that Mary (and most other self-identified “conservatives” or “liberals/progressives”) are 15% principled and 85% tribal. Mary will switch on 85% of her issues with social priming, but not on that 15% pro-life issue.

And while Mary was principled on abortion, other conservatives will be principled on gun rights, immigration, racial equality, low taxes, or military strength. The joining together of distinct, principled interest groups is how the Republican coalition formed. Our point is that there is no underlying “conservatism” connecting these groups and their principles—that’s the myth of left and right (and the myth serves the interests of the coalition because it creates loyalty among the constituents). These disparate interests and views are connected only socially, not philosophically.

So it’s not that there is “one big issue” in politics (with people on the “left” or “right” of that one big issue), but that there are “two big tribes” in politics (with people anchoring into those tribes for principled reasons and then conforming for social reasons). So conservatives aren’t 100% tribal, but conservatism is 100% tribal (if by “conservatism” we mean the connective tissue between conservative issue positions). And it is evidence for this position (and not “ideologues are 100% tribal”) that we provided in our book.

To summarize: people think we are saying, “Everyone is 100% tribal”; and it appears you are saying, “Actually, people are only 85% tribal so you guys are taking things too far.” But we aren’t saying people are 100% tribal, we are only saying that the amount of tribal conformism we see (85% sounds about right) is sufficient to explain the clustering of beliefs in the population.

OK, Bryan, do we agree at least on this? Once we clear away the bad associations I created with my poor choice of terminology, and instead look at our actual argument, I think that we do.

Anti-Market

OK, now having cleared that up and established what I think is agreement, I’m going to go even further and say that you agree 100% (not 85%) with the central thesis of our book. It appears to me that you, Bryan Caplan, share our belief that there’s more than one issue in politics.

Here’s why: You keep saying that the fundamental issue of the left is “anti market” and the fundamental issue of the right is “anti-left,” and yet that very formulation contains two dimensions (a “pro vs. anti-market” dimension and a “pro vs. anti-left” dimension). Right there you’ve given us more than “one big issue” in politics, haven’t you?

Furthermore, I think you would readily concede that being against markets isn’t the only cause of “the left.” In recent years they have championed other issues that have nothing to do with being anti-market, such as abortion rights, more immigration, pacifism, drug legalization, separating church and state, free speech, police reform, vaccination, etc. Right there, you have many more issues than the two you mentioned, right? Ergo, Bryan Caplan is a political pluralist like us (unless you believe that being anti-market is the only issue in politics and all other issues are somehow an expression of one’s position on markets, but everything I’ve read by you suggests you don’t believe that—after all, you yourself are extremely pro-market and extremely pro-immigration).

So even if left-wingers have, in general, always been anti-market (a point I don’t concede by the way: left-liberal Thomas Jefferson and his millions of followers were pro market; left-liberal Andrew Jackson and his millions of followers were pro-market; the millions of left-liberal Locofocos were pro-market; the millions of left-liberal Mugwumps were pro-market, etc.), that is irrelevant to the question of whether there is only one issue in politics because markets are not the only issue.

And if you really are just using the term “left-wing” as a synonym for “anti-market,” then why not just say “anti-market” instead of “left-wing”? Wouldn’t that more accurately communicate that you are just talking about the one issue of markets and not abortion, race, drug control, etc.? Why not just use the less confusing of the two terms that doesn’t carry all of the monist baggage?

Counter-evidence

OK, since we have been talking past each other on our thesis, we have also been talking past each other about the evidence for that thesis.

For instance, you say,

…notice that when intellectuals fail to respond to priming and proclaim their continued loyalty to “true conservatism” or “true liberalism,” you refuse to count this as evidence in favor of essentialism. Why not?

Once again, this is based on the misunderstanding that our thesis is, “everyone is 100% tribal” and that’s not true. We are simply saying that there is enough social conformism (demonstrated in these laboratory experiments) to explain the correlation between unrelated positions.

So, yes, of course these experiments will show that some people on some issues wouldn’t change their minds for social reasons. Bryan Caplan wouldn’t. Verlan Lewis wouldn’t. Robin Hanson wouldn’t. Hyrum Lewis wouldn’t (I hope), but there are enough people who would to explain why distinct issue positions tend to go together.

Again, the astrology analogy is really helpful here. What if those born from July 22-August 23 (Leos) actually are slightly more likely than the public at large to join the military?. This wouldn’t make us conclude that this correlation is caused by star alignment. We would conclude that it’s because Leos are conforming to stereotype. If a Leo believes in astrology, then they will say, “Oh. Since I was born August 1, I must be brave and as a brave man I’ll join the military.” And if we found this correlation only among those few Leos who believed in astrology and actively consulted their horoscope, then that would be overwhelming evidence that the correlation is explained by social reasons, not mystical ones.

But drawing this obvious conclusion wouldn’t be the same as saying, “100% of Leos conform to stereotype” because obviously not all of them do. It’s just that enough of them do to explain why Leos are slightly more likely than other Americans to join the military. This degree of conformism among Leos (less than 100%) explains that correlation much better than the far-fetched idea that star alignments cause character traits, and this degree of conformism among conservatives (less than 100%) explains issue-position correlation much better than the far-fetched idea that there is just one issue in politics.

Note also that your objection here serves to highlight the reality of political pluralism because it shows that there are many distinct bundles of positions, not just two. The fact that some people who call themselves “conservatives” switch many of their views with priming such that they have one bundle of positions (call it “Bundle A”), and other people calling themselves “conservatives” adhere to the old Reagan policies such that they have a different bundle of positions (call it “Bundle B”), and other people calling themselves “conservatives” adhere to the old Taft policies such that they have a different bundle of positions (call it “Bundle C”) and so on (D, E, F…), underscores the point that there isn’t just one big issue in politics leading to just two bundles (depending on whether you are on the left or right of that one issue), but that there are many issues in politics and many ways to bundle them.

Falsification

I also think we are talking past each other when it comes to the matter of “falsification” because we are using that term in two different senses.

You say,

Why is falsificationism an absurd philosophy of science? “One failed prediction falsifies the theory” is the slogan. 

If this is what you mean by “falsification,” then, obviously you are right and nobody does or should believe in “falsificationism.”

But what I (and, contra popular belief, Karl Popper) mean by “falsification” is: 1) scientific theories must be testable, and 2) if evidence won’t change our minds about a theory, we are not really testing it. After all, we can confirm any theory by telling ex-post stories that incorporate all conceivable evidence. A good scientific theory makes specific predictions: it says, “if this theory is correct, we should see ‘X’ but not ‘Y.’” Testable, scientific theories lay out what contrary evidence would look like; untestable, non-scientific theories say that there is no conceivable contrary evidence because we will find a way to accommodate all evidence through storytelling. This isn’t “one failed prediction falsifies,” it’s just the willingness to change our minds in the face of new evidence (and how much and what kind of evidence is enough to get us to change/falsify will depend on the theory).

And also contra popular belief, Bayesian reasoning is not opposed to Popperian falsification, but goes hand-in-hand with it because we can’t update our beliefs if we see everything as confirming them (e.g., a Christian Fundamentalist can’t update the probability of six-day creationism if they see all fossil evidence for evolution as a trick placed there by God to test their faith; an astrologer can’t update the probability that planet alignments cause personality traits when they interpret all Leo actions as “brave”).

So my whole point here is that political monism rests on the same approach as astrology and other pseudo-sciences—everything confirms it, nothing falsifies it. The X value is infinite, the Y value is zero. Political monists say that being conservative goes along with militarism, free trade, small government, and balanced budgets…until conservatives turn against these issues at which point the monists make up stories about how being conservative actually goes along with the opposite policies. There is no conceivable falsifying evidence. Like the astrologer or religious fundamentalist, they will make up a story to show how their theory “predicted” everything (monism “predicts” conservatives will support free trade to conserve the American tradition of capitalism and it “predicts” conservatives will support protectionism to conserve American industry and jobs). Since X is infinite, and Y is zero for political monism, it is on the same intellectual plane as astrology.

OK, but what about political pluralism? Is it falsifiable? Of course. If we pluralists saw that seemingly unrelated political positions do, in fact, bundle in stable patterns across time, that would be evidence against our theory. If we were to find that those positions bundled in the same pattern across cultures, that would be evidence against our theory. If we were to find that those who were ignorant of the political spectrum were just as likely to hold the “conservative” or “liberal” bundles of positions as those who are steeped in it, that would be evidence against our theory. If we were to find that identical twins raised in different socio-political environments wound up with the same set of issue positions as adults, that would be evidence against our theory. If we saw conservative opinion turn against big-government Republican politicians, that would be evidence against our theory. If we saw liberal opinion favoring anti-market Republicans over more pro-market Democrats, that would be evidence against our theory. And if there was enough of such counter-evidence, we political pluralists would be willing to say, “we were wrong.” We pluralists clearly delineate what evidence would work against our theory, but the monists do not. They simply say, “tell me what conservatives are doing, and I’ll make up a story about how it conserves.” That’s not rational or scientific.

Hitler/Private Language

OK, now on to something that puzzles me a bit. You say,

Leftists will often say [Hitler was right-wing]. Very few self-identified rightists will. Indeed, most rightists who confront this issue normally argue that Hitler was “really” a leftist. Check out this little poll I did.

That’s interesting that the people in your poll consider Hitler “on the left,” but they are in the minority. In general public discourse (and in just about every history or government class I’ve ever taken), Hitler is classified as right-wing. ChatGPT is a pretty good indicator of conventional wisdom, and here’s what it just said when I asked it if Hitler was right wing or left wing:

“Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party are typically classified as right-wing due to their promotion of extreme nationalist, authoritarian, and anti-communist ideologies.”

So aren’t these people calling Hitler “left wing” using a private language? Hitler is typically considered, “right wing,” but you seem to be saying, “This is contested. Many people would place Hitler at the far left” to which I respond, “Exactly!” That’s precisely why political monism is so foolish. When we conceive of politics as having just one dimension, we can cherry pick which issue in politics is “the big one” and then put anyone anywhere on the line accordingly. Consequently, the political spectrum communicates either gibberish or misinformation. So why are we trying to place Hitler on a line when we don’t even know what that line is measuring (“He’s far right!” “No, actually he’s on the left!”)? Why not just say, “Hitler was a nationalist” or “Hitler was an anti-Semite,” or “Hitler was a socialist,” or “Hitler was a militarist”? That would communicate actual information. Placing him on a line communicates nothing at best and misinformation (“He was right wing so he must have been in favor of free markets!”) at worst.

And, perhaps I’m misunderstanding you, but previously you were saying that Hitler is on the far right because he was extremely anti-left, but now you seem to be agreeing with those who claim that “Actually, Hitler can be seen as on the far left.” Isn’t this a retreat from your “anti market vs. anti left” framing? If we can’t even agree on what value the spectrum is modeling (anti-left, which makes Hitler “far right,” or anti-market, which makes Hitler “far left”) then we really should just give up this magic line as our guiding model—it communicates nonsense.

I think the same point holds when you say,

More thoughtful leftists repeatedly acknowledge that Trump isn’t clearly right-wing. Back in 2015, Ezra Klein called him “the perfect moderate.” In 2020, New York Magazine ran a story called “Trump Isn’t a Moderate, But He Plays One on TV.”

But, in your conceptualization, doesn’t “right wing” mean anti-left? And isn’t Trump unquestionably anti-left? So why are you now saying he’s “moderate”? You say that left-right is useful because it communicates an underlying reality (anti-market vs. anti-left), but now it appears you are saying that it doesn’t communicate that underlying reality because left-right mean different things to different people in different contexts, which is exactly what we have been saying all along.

Ezra Klein says Trump is a “moderate” for opposing cuts to entitlement programs, but other people say Trump is an “extremist” for being so anti-immigrant. We are back to the point we keep making over and over: these are distinct issues. So instead of pretending that immigration and size of government are the same issue and modeling both on a single line, we should accede to the reality that they are distinct and discuss them separately. That’s really not too hard. Being specific and granular is what we do in every other complex realm of life.

Other Spectra

This leads us to the next point. I said, “We don’t use a unidimensional spectrum in any other complex realm of life for good reason” to which you responded:

Actually, we use many such spectra. Masculine versus feminine. Smart versus stupid. Rich versus poor. None are perfect. Almost all are useful.

But wait a minute. Notice that I said we don’t use a spectrum in any other complex realm of life. We can and should use spectra in simple realms because unidimensional models are useful if the underlying reality is unidimensional (as it is with rich vs. poor). When we are dealing with one dimension such as “hot vs. cold,” then a one-dimensional spectrum is useful.

But a unidimensional model, by definition, is not adequate to represent a multidimensional reality. For instance, what if I said that we can model biology using a single spectrum, with male, tailed, vertebrates on the left, and female, untailed, invertebrates on the right? You would say that this is absurd because those three traits are distinct, that there are many dimensions to biology, and that such a complex realm can’t be modeled on a single spectrum. We don’t say “That’s a left-wing animal”; we just say, “That animal is female” and leave out unrelated biological traits such as tail presence and skeletal structure.

That’s exactly my point about politics. It’s a complex realm with many dimensions like biology, not a simple realm with one dimension like temperature, so it’s not useful to model it using a spectrum. Politics, like biology, is pluralist not monist and we should do in politics what we have done in biology: keep unrelated issues unbundled.

Of course our party system is binary so we should talk about Democrats and Republicans, but underlying political dispositions are not binary, so we should stop conceptualizing politics in terms of “left vs. right.” The reality of binary parties has led to the delusion of binary political types so let’s keep the reality and shed the delusion.

Utility

OK, going further on the question of “usefulness,” you say,

When researchers claim that the spectrum is useful, what they mean rather is that using the spectrum helps us to understand political identity and political conflict. Which it totally does…. I use the spectrum because it helps me understand the political world as it really is 

OK, once again we are talking past each. I’m saying the political spectrum is “not useful” because it’s based on a delusion, but you are saying that it helps us understand the way people self-identify and explain their actions. I agree and we make exactly this point in the book: a spectrum can give us information about tribal affinities because Americans, unfortunately, have bought into the delusion that there is just one issue in politics and have organized their identities and conflicts accordingly. That’s why we called our theory the “social theory of ideology”—there isn’t “one big issue” in politics, but there are certainly many people who have created identity categories around the delusion that there is. The delusion itself is not useful, but understanding the identity categories based on the delusion can be.

In that sense, I’m saying that the political spectrum is not useful in the same way that astrology is not useful: it’s based on a delusion. But could scholars profitably use astrological categories to understand people who do believe in astrology? Sure. If Leos formed a “National Leo Alliance,” and rioted against Capricorns in New York City, scholars would want to talk about the “Leo” identity category and the conflict it motivated, even though the category itself was based on a delusion.

But, contra what you say, that’s generally not how scholars use the political spectrum. The research is clear that social-science academics tend to identify with ideological categories at a much higher rate than the public at large (almost all of them self-identify as “left”). It’s as if those studying astrology suddenly turned to full-time horoscope writing and training professional astrologers.

That’s why I say we should retire the political spectrum. As long as we use it (even if we understand that it is only useful to understand identity and conflict), we are reinscribing the delusion. So why not, as we say in the book, puncture the delusion by using accurate terms such as Republican and Democrat to describe political actors? It’s hard to say “the left” or “the right” without conjuring up images of a magical line that models the non-existent “one big issue.”

George W. Bush anti-market

OK, on to your claim that “it’s not clear that George W. Bush was anti-market.” My assertion that he was the most anti-market president in a generation was based on data I got from the Cato Institute’s “Economic Freedom of the World” report:

https://www.cato.org/blog/global-economic-freedom-slightly-united-states-still-low

According to this study, economic freedom fell more under Bush than any other president in a generation. For charts and commentary, see:

https://danieljmitchell.wordpress.com/2014/10/10/the-united-states-improves-to-12-in-new-rankings-of-global-economic-freedom/

And

https://savvyroo.com/chart-440723381309-the-continuing-u-s-decline-in-economic-freedom

I’ll be interested to look more closely at the Fraser data you provided to see if it will change my mind, but Cato’s seems more convincing simply because it aligns with what we know about Bush’s record on big government. Size of government is one of the most important components of economic freedom and government spending as a percentage of GDP increased radically under Bush (yes, more than any president in a generation). This supports the Cato study, but contradicts Fraser so I must confess that Fraser looks a bit suspect from the get go.

If Cato is right that economic freedom went way down under FDR and way down under Bush, why does the Left love FDR and hate Bush when their policies moved the country in the same anti-market direction? Because there are more issues in politics beyond just “anti-market vs. pro-market.”

False Impression

I said, “Why give people the false impression that you are a racist, anti-immigrant warmonger because you believe in free markets?”

You said:  

Do I give this impression?

Sadly, yes. Have you read Nancy Maclean? Her contention is that free-market George Mason University economists are continuing the racist, white supremacist project of John C. Calhoun. Her evidence? Both free markets and racism are “radical right.” And, no, she’s not just one marginal crank: hers is the standard view accepted by the historical profession. Her book has received awards and nearly unanimous praise from academic historians (see the “Democracy in Chains” Wikipedia page). So, yes, the political spectrum is making thousands of really influential people (history professors at the best universities in the country and their students) believe that you are engaged in a “racist” project simply because you believe in free markets and, per the political spectrum, free markets and racism are connected by an some underlying, evil “one big issue.”

Nancy Maclean’s failure to understand that there is more than one issue in politics (markets are one, racism is a different one) is causing all kinds of harm, especially the hatred and antipathy it generates towards good (non-racist) people like you, Tyler Cowen, James Buchanan, Robin Hanson and the rest. Monism strikes again.

Finally, you conclude by saying,

What I won’t do is throw away a useful tool because I wish I lived in world where the tool didn’t work.

Again, is astrology “useful”? Only inasmuch as it tells us about people’s delusions and identities and conflicts based on those delusions. Sadly, most people (including scholars) use the political spectrum not to understand identities, but to model an imaginary “one big issue” and there is nothing useful about that.