I guess there's a question of cause and effect in this: Intelligent people spend more time in academia, and in the US, academia is more liberal than the population at large. That would bias academics towards liberalism - it's always easier to share the politics of those you surround yourself with.
Also, there's a certain expectation that academics can design society, and thus advance us. This idea -- that society can be designed -- is opposed by conservatives while at least somewhat embraced by liberals, which again could explain why intelligent people tend to be liberals.
Finally, the articles' assertion that liberalism is defined by "weird ideas about, say, helping genetically unrelated strangers" is one that every single conservative thinker, way back to Burke, would oppose.
The problem with liberalism is that it's thoroughly impractical. Liberals largely have home-owners association syndrome, where they believe they can change the world by idly meddling in other people's lives. The problem is, their programs generally don't work, and regularly create mis-aligned incentives.
Take 100% FHA loans and desktop underwriting pioneered by liberals like Barney Frank so that everyone, especially poor people that are constantly taken advantage of by the man, in America could own homes. That little scheme blew up spectacularly.
Take it to the extreme, and go all the way to communism. From each according to his ability, to each according to his need. Under such a system, why would I possibly want to sacrifice and work long, hard hours? Society would be like a giant high school, where most people do the absolute minimum to get by. Most smart people would figure out that hard work doesn't pay and would optimize for easy, fun jobs, or they would organize to change the system. The lackluster productivity of the Soviet Union countries should be evidence of this, but people still spout off nonsense about how wonderful it would be.
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[ 3.3 ms ] story [ 23.6 ms ] threadAlso, there's a certain expectation that academics can design society, and thus advance us. This idea -- that society can be designed -- is opposed by conservatives while at least somewhat embraced by liberals, which again could explain why intelligent people tend to be liberals.
Finally, the articles' assertion that liberalism is defined by "weird ideas about, say, helping genetically unrelated strangers" is one that every single conservative thinker, way back to Burke, would oppose.
Take 100% FHA loans and desktop underwriting pioneered by liberals like Barney Frank so that everyone, especially poor people that are constantly taken advantage of by the man, in America could own homes. That little scheme blew up spectacularly.
Take it to the extreme, and go all the way to communism. From each according to his ability, to each according to his need. Under such a system, why would I possibly want to sacrifice and work long, hard hours? Society would be like a giant high school, where most people do the absolute minimum to get by. Most smart people would figure out that hard work doesn't pay and would optimize for easy, fun jobs, or they would organize to change the system. The lackluster productivity of the Soviet Union countries should be evidence of this, but people still spout off nonsense about how wonderful it would be.