A simple statistical analysis of existing societies lends some support to the hypothesis. The urban societies of Western Europe are definitely more liberal than others, and the high-density societies of India, China, and Southeast Asia seem to lean more towards liberalism. But urbanization muddies the issue. The USA, Australia, and Canada all have areas with very low population densities as well as densely populated urban areas. Yet in all three of these countries, the urban regions are more liberal than the rural areas. So I think that there is some empirical support for the hypothesis.
But the stronger case, I think, is the analytical one. Let's compare two extremes: the farmer in Nebraska in 1880 and the apartment dweller in Manhattan today. The farmer is living very much in a YOYO situation. There is no police protection, so he must carry a gun. The apartment dweller, by contrast, has little need for a gun because the police force is pretty good at keeping criminals at bay (on a relative, not absolute scale). The farmer is almost entirely self-reliant for everything, excepting the metal tools he uses; to purchase those, he sells a portion of his produce, reserving the bulk for his own family's consumption. The apartment dweller, by contrast, is entirely dependent upon millions of other people for his needs: food, water, police and fire protection, health care, sewage, clothing -- everything.
If we think about these two extremes in terms of their connectedness with other people, we see that the Nebraska farmer has just a few links to the rest of humanity, while the Manhattan apartment dweller is connected to millions of people all over the world. His food supply includes components from every continent except Antarctica; the petroleum products he uses could have come from any continent save Australia and Antarctica. He uses products whose parts were manufactured in China, Japan, Malaysia, Taiwan, Mexico, Europe, South America, and the USA. The raw materials for the things he consumes come from just about everywhere. The Nebraska farmer, by contrast, has most of his links to the closest town, and maybe a few links to Chicago -- that's it.
The Nebraska farmer can pee anywhere he wants; not so the Manhattanite. The Nebraskan can shoot his gun at anything and at anytime; such behavior would rightly land the Manhattanite in jail. The farmer can make as much noise or sewage stink as he wants; the city dweller has no such freedom. The farmer can get on his horse and ride anywhere he pleases, at any time he pleases, by any route he pleases. The Manhattanite must follow an intricate set of rules when he drives his car: stopping when required, going when required, driving at the required speed, not blocking traffic -- he has very little freedom.
The basic principle here is simple: your freedom ends where my nose begins. If the nearest nose is 20 miles away, you have a lot of freedom. If the nearest nose is 20 feet away, you freedom is necessarily more constrained.
Populations are increasing and noses are getting crowded more tightly together; that necessarily means that individual freedoms must be eroded. Americans tried to evade this squeeze by creating expansive suburbs that gave each person his own plot of land and private home. But the rising price of oil is pricing this strategy out of reach of the middle class, forcing people to accept higher density living -- and with it, the conservative fantasy of the rugged individualist taking care of himself.
The American frontier closed in 1890, over a hundred years ago, yet conservatives today still dream of the good old days when men were men and freedom was preserved with firepower. The problems of the 21st century are all problems arising from more and more people crowding together. This will necessarily drive our society further and further to the left. In this narrow sense, liberalism is the wave of the future and conservatism is the flicker of the past.
I hope our conservative readers will step forward with a robust attack on my thesis.
15 comments:
This all seems plausible -- if not obviously correct.
The first interesting point is that in my experience, there is a clear (CLEAR!) correlation between population density and antisocial behavior. And yet, I tend to think of liberals as comparatively prosocial. This could totally just be silly bias, but it's interesting to me how that intersects with your postulation.
The second thing is that it would be super to devise society to satisfy the preferences of more people right? I mean, rather than trying to force us all into a particular mold. So what kind of social structures would be able to satisfy the high-density lefties AND the low-density righties? What if we (the nation, world, whatever) were set up as pretty communitarian city-states surrounded by much less-governed rural expanses? I mean, we already see that reality growing out of the local preferences that you have written about, but it feels like we kind of push back against that reality instead of embracing it. How could we enhance that tendency to increase satisfaction without condemning people in either locale? Does that make sense?
On that correlation between anti-social behavior and population density: first, we do know that there are rat studies showing that they start attacking each other when they get too crowded. There is certainly greater stress in having to put up with lots of other; road rage is one example of this. However, the possibility of there being less anti-social behavior in rural areas suffers from the "who hears the tree falling in the forest" problem: if the population densities are really low, anti-social people don't get that many opportunities to express their tendencies.
So I'm arguing both sides of the issue.
The idea of localization of constraints goes back to the original federal concept. States were distinct societies and the founders realized the need to permit each state to address its unique problems in its own way. Unfortunately, that doesn't work very well anymore. State boundaries don't well reflect the urban/rural boundaries. For example, about 40% of Alaska's entire population lives in Anchorage. So is Alaska a rural state or an urban state? Moreover, the population is now so mobile that few people now live in the state in which they were born. With so much mobility, how can any state have a unique character?
Such problems could be bumped down all the way to the county/municipal level, with municipalities setting up their own laws for their denser lifestyles, and counties having more relaxed laws. However, even then the problem remains: the typical rural dweller goes into town regularly. Still, in some respects this can be made to work. For example, in most states in the country, it's illegal to fire a gun inside city limits except in self-defense, but it remains legal to blast away outside city limits. I live out in the country, and there's a fellow about a mile away who likes to spend some peaceful Sunday afternoon blasting the hell out of targets with some heavy automatic weapons. It's fine with me; with the cost of his ammunition, I know he's not going to spend too much time making a racket.
Here's an area where it doesn't work: education. Local school boards are supposed to instill local values, but the effect is to provide rural children with educations that do not serve them well when they move to the big city to make their fortunes.
Localization partially addresses the problem, but it's still a tough one.
Corroborating my observations with rat studies is a great idea -- I should have thought of that. I was basing my claim on personal experiences living in LA, Chicago, St. Louis, rural NJ (interesting because it's so close to such huge population centers), rural Missouri and now small-town exurb Minnesota. And I certainly grant that there are antisocialites in the rural area but in my experience they're still willing to help out when you need it.
And yeah, education is a good example. Environment would be another. But these are things that might be worked on.
An interesting theory. Though it's a little unclear to me what aspects of behavior you include in the terms "left" and "liberal". The use of the latter word is kind of funny, actually. You describe the city-dwellers as liberal, but then explain how they have less liberties than the rural people. I guess you Americans don't see anything strange in this division, but for me it's kind of odd. Particularly when you talk about quasi-dictatorial countries like China.
I think another factor to consider is population migration. Younger folks tent to move to the urban areas, while younger folks also tend to be more open-minded and less conservative. Cities also tend to house the universities and other higher education.
Here in Finland, both of the above factors - and possibly your theory - contribute to the fact that the Helsinki metropolitan area is the best area for the Green party. We don't call ourselves leftist but I would definately call us "liberals" (though I'm still a bit unsure if we understand the term similarly).
We've never had the kind of individualism and frontier mentality as you Americans (well, not in the last Millennium anyway). I think the conservative people here (defining "conservative" as "having traditional values") are actually more autoritarian than the liberals. "All real men go to the military" and other ideas like that.
I'm sure there's a point in there, somewhere..
"The farmer is living very much in a YOYO situation....while the Manhattan apartment dweller is connected to millions of people all over the world."
There's a suggestion here, perhaps unintended, that YOYO ("You're On Your Own") is an appropriate ethic for the boonies, and that WITT ("We're In This Together") is best suited for cities. Not so, in this view.
That YOYO farmer is likely getting by with the help of subsidies from the government, and the only way he and his wife could possibly meet their medical expenses is that they're both 65 and on Medicare.
I do agree, in the large, that cities breed tolerance and absolutely tend to be more liberal. Even cities in solidly Republican states vote Democratic, e.g., Houston and Dallas went for Obama in November.
But I would suggest that WITT operates just as strongly in the country as it does in our cities.
Eurohippy said:
'An interesting theory. Though it's a little unclear to me what aspects of behavior you include in the terms "left" and "liberal". The use of the latter word is kind of funny, actually. You describe the city-dwellers as liberal, but then explain how they have less liberties than the rural people. I guess you Americans don't see anything strange in this division, but for me it's kind of odd. Particularly when you talk about quasi-dictatorial countries like China.'
That might be because in most of the world, "Liberal" refers to economics, whilst in the US, "Liberal" refers to politics. So, a "Liberal" in Europe or in Latin America refers to someone who favors "Liberal" (read, "Right-leaning") Economics, whereas in the US a "Liberal" is someone who favors "Liberal" ("read left-leaning") Politics.
Chris, I do have a counterpoint that might be of interest. As I have mentioned before, it's my opinion that in my country (Venezuela) there is no right, that means, most people lean to "liberal" politics (regardless of the idiot we have for president), however in our brand of "leftism" Chavez has more support in rural areas than in the cities, probably because his policies include (at least he claims it does) a lot of support for indigenous rights and land reforms. I consider myself leaning to the right, by the standards of this country, I am a facist, yet by the standards of most of the rest of the world I am center left.
Well, we're off to a roaring start. Gerald, I think you misunderstood a crucial factor: I am talking about the Nebraska farmer in 1880, not today. The reason for doing so is to provide an extreme example of YOYO. Such a person really is very much on his own.
I think it's becoming obvious from our foreign correspondents (EuroHippie, what in the world are you doing up at this hour!?!?!) that my analysis works only in the USA.
By the way, Finland is an example of a very sparcely populated country. We have 5 Million people spread all over 340 000 km2. Foreign people visiting our capital complain about the lack of people.
Nevertheless, during the the last century, our country has had a very strong WITT attitude when it comes to welfare. Admittedly, we may have our proximity to the Soviet Union to thank for that: we had a... bias for leftist policies and politicians for several decades.
We're also pretty progressive, compared to most of the world (even including US, I think) when it comes to many liberal issues like women's position, gay rights, freedom of worship. Here too, there are other factors in play, though: The Lutheran church is relatively permissive and mostly keeps out of the government's business. Our independence coincided with the starting stages of women's liberation, so it was natural for us to grant voting rights to them from the start. Women also did a lot of "men's work" during the wars, challenging old attitudes.
So to conclude, Finland is very sparcely populated, but leftist and liberal on most of your standards (if I understand them right). However, other strong factors may make us an exception of the rule, rather than a disproof.
This discussion might work better by eliminating left and right and just going with WITT and YOYO systems.
(Also, do these notions necessarily imply big-government and small-government?)
Yes, that's a great idea: it's YOYO vs WITT in considering the difference between high-density areas and low-density areas. And we must also place in context the stronger sense of help-thy-neighbor that exists in low-density environments. I live in such an environment, and we all are quick to help each other. We all recognize that, in a crisis, a neighbor can get there much sooner than the authorities, so we are all very responsive to our neighbors' needs.
However, I think it is possible to differentiate between the voluntary and the governmental. If my neighbor needs my help, I retain the option to turn them down and tell them YOYO. And we also have a few nasty personal disputes that intrude into the process; some of these neighbors wouldn't help each other if they were dying. That's not WITT.
Well, I suppose my earlier analysis of my country applies to the YOYO/WITT dichotomy too. We're a high-governmentally-enforced-WITT/low-population-density society.
I think your theory has merit and is probably one of the many factors that affect the the ratio of YOYO and WITT. However, there are other, much stronger factors such as national history and the wealth of the people.
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Something tangential just occurred to me: Do you think Nazi Germany was a YOYO or a WITT state?
Chris: I *did* misunderstand; didn't realize (and didn't pay close enough attention, as I see looking back) that you were talking about a farmer circa 1880.
Christopher: Re your question, do these notions (YOYO and WITT) necessarily imply big-government and small-government, they certainly do as postulated by Jared Bernstein in his book, All Together Now. And they certainly do regarding the political positions of progressives (aka liberals) and conservatives in the U.S. in 2009. In the broad ethical sense, of course, government (small or big) has little if anything to do with it.
Let me attempt an American counterexample. Here are another pair of extremes: the southern sharecropper of 1880 and the uneducated inner-city dweller of 2009.
The farmer is living in a situation where the only hope he has in life is to band together with other men like himself and demand that the government make their lives better—protect him physically, control the prices of his crops, provide services like transportation, warehousing, agronomical education, &c. It was in fact just such farmers of the 1880s who drove the Populist movement and its WITT principles to which New-Deal liberalism owes so much.
The uneducated inner-citizen, in contrast, is profoundly isolated. Other people in his position spurn him because they believe that only a small number of them will ever have any success, and for one to have it, another must not. People in a better position ignore him. People in a worse position only remind him of how he could end up. The government is his enemy. Legal immigrant or illegal, he is treated by the police as an interloper and by every other government service as an impotent object of charity. The police do not protect people where he lives; he can shoot at or urinate on what he pleases. His population density is probably just as high if not higher than that of your Manhattanite, but human circumstances do not get much more YOYO.
I do believe that you gentlemen have reduced my hypothesis to a smoldering pile of shredded remains. There's definitely some substance to the hypothesis, but recovering that substance from the pitiful remains will require the talents of a professional forensic scientist, a magnifying glass, and some tweezers.
This is one of the delights of good blogging -- getting an idea torn to shreds. Well, it was fun! I better get to work on something else. Feel free to sharpen your knives, but please don't giggle in anticipation.
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