Different Post-Liberalism

 On Becoming Less Left-Wing by Dan Williams at Conspicuous Cognition. He focuses on the economic understanding and the myths liberals believe. My own journey from the left, now decades ago, focused more on the data around social issues. Liberals believed myths, not only about the issues, but about themselves and their opponents. I came out from among them and worked almost entirely with them throughout my career. Many lovely people, fun to talk to and earnest about wanting to do good. But I had grown entirely suspicious of my own motives from reading CS Lewis, who stresses that self-deception is one of the main drivers of sin and unbelief, and easily heard and saw the same things in these others.  I had not seen it especially before. We saw ourselves as The Nice People, buoyed by the knowledge that our opponents were the stupid, evil people. Much of this was social, that they just didn't Get It - about music and arts, about the horrors of conformity, loving guns and the military because they were afraid - all the usual. 

Because of my life choices good and bad I found myself regarded as an outsider among my own people and I saw them for who they were. I also learned that the stupid, evil people were far less stupid and evil than I had imagined. I learned that the liberals in human services were in fact quite controlling of their charges. But mostly, I learned that a lot of these obviously great ideas didn't um, you know, work.

But back to Dan Williams, who saw something similar but not identical in left-wing economics. He summarises well and dismisses the pieties efficiently. Be suspicious who give their own good motives as the reason their beliefs must be true.  

His seven basics are worth listing.  He expands on each of these.

First, standard left-wing critiques of mainstream economics are biased and low-quality. 

Second, incentives really matter. 

Third, poverty is the default state of humanity. 

Fourth, you cannot solve poverty or create wealth by redistribution alone.

Fifth, although free markets are subject to well-known market failures, governments are run by people, not angels, who are subject to the same kinds of incentives and constraints as those in the private sector.

Sixth, there are no solutions, only trade-offs, and unintended consequences are inevitable in political decision-making. 

Seven, even win-win cooperation is inherently challenging.  

So though he describes himself as still liberal in many ways, you can see he is the sort you could ave a conversation that was not infuriating at every turn.