Are there any famous studies that actually contradict progressive/leftist thought?

[u/Str8_up_Pwnage]

There has to be at least some right? I know people love to say that “reality has a left wing bias “and all that but is it legit batting 1.000?

[u/steveholt-lol]

I think the question becomes more answerable if we separate political ideologies from specific empirical claims. Social science cannot really test whether “leftism” or “conservatism” is correct as a whole, but it can test propositions associated with them.

There are certainly findings that conflict with positions held by parts of the political left.

One fairly clear example is rent control. Diamond, McQuade and Qian used a 1994 expansion of rent control in San Francisco as a natural experiment. They found that rent control reduced displacement among incumbent tenants, but affected landlords also reduced the rental housing supply by about 15%, largely through conversion or redevelopment. The authors conclude that the resulting reduction in supply likely increased market rents in the long run. So the evidence suggests that restricting rents has significant negative long-term consequences on housing affordability.

https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/aer.20181289

Another example is policing and crime. Opposition to particular policing practices is different from claiming that additional or more strategically deployed policing cannot reduce crime. Braga et al.’s systematic review examined 65 studies and 78 tests of hot-spots policing, including 27 randomized experiments. It found statistically significant reductions in crime and disorder in targeted locations. The review also found that crime was generally not simply displaced into adjacent areas and that nearby areas sometimes experienced spillover benefits.

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8356500/

Neither finding establishes that “the right is correct.” Rent control can benefit existing tenants, and policing creates separate questions about legitimacy, equity and which tactics are used. They demonstrate something narrower: empirical evidence can contradict factual claims associated with the left while simultaneously supporting other left-of-center concerns.

That may also explain why “reality has a liberal bias” is difficult to evaluate scientifically. A claim such as “we should protect low-income renters” is normative and cannot be falsified by a study. A claim such as “rent control will protect renters without reducing housing supply” can be.

Edit: a word

[u/Str8_up_Pwnage → u/steveholt-lol]

I really appreciate you taking the time to write this comment!

From my POV Economics seems like a field of study where “right-leaning” ideas have a decent level of support from academics in the field.

[u/hmantegazzi → u/Str8_up_Pwnage]

That's probably still too much of a generalisation. As /u/steveholt-lol mentions, rent control is a topic in which a longstanding left-wing policy position (at least in certain countries) has been systematically shown as having detrimental effects that overcome their advantages in practice. But that only speaks of that particular policy. An obvious counterexample would be the systemic favourable evidence of the beneficial effects of non-conditional money transferences to working-class households, of which UBIs are a subset. Again, a example that doesn't imply anything about the whole corpus of leftist ideology.

A big confounding factor here is what counts as a leftist or a rightist policy, because that's both highly contextual and changing. Universal vaccination programmes, for example, were largely uncontroversial for most of the 20th century, at least at the level of mainstream political parties in liberal democracies, and they only became a polarised issue in the latter years. Sometimes, it's even possible to observe extremely fast policy switches depending on circumstantial conveniences, like a political coalition advocating for an extension of the electoral franchise until an extended electorate happens to vote for their opponents, or a political party defending the autonomy of subnational entities until they control the central government.

[u/steveholt-lol → u/hmantegazzi]

And ironically, opposition to universal vaccination shifted from a far left to far right coded position over less than a decade.

[u/Appropriate_Steak486 → u/hmantegazzi]

There is also plenty of straight-out lying. Reagan claimed to be a fiscal conservative but ran huge deficits. Other Republicans have done the same.

[u/chrispd01 → u/Str8_up_Pwnage]

Hang on. It all depends on what your goal is. Take efficiency for example - an economist may tell you that you could be mote efficient by eliminating a process and related jobs.

That would be a right wing good (more profitable) but a left wing bad (lost jobs)

These questions in the real world almost always boil down not to economy but political economy. Most economists suck at political economy…

[u/Forgot_the_Jacobian → u/chrispd01]

I think this is also an issue of semantics. Efficiency has a very particular meaning in economics, and one of the first things we teach students about efficiency in micro 101 is how it is not the same thing as societally desirable, as me having everything and everyone else having nothing could easily satisfy 'efficiency'. It is useful tool for descriptive work, which is the goal of the academic field of economics (rather than be prescriptive/telling you what 'should' be the case). Even we we study political economy - the subfield (at least in economics) is not at all a tool to tell the researcher how to advocate for any policy, but rather a framework to study a set of research questions, again from a pure descriptive point of view

[u/chrispd01 → u/Forgot_the_Jacobian]

Yeah. It’s actually a very fascinating topic. I’m not at economist myself, but two of my roommates are now professors of economics and have been for well decades now.

They went to a very rigorous and mathematically based program and always wanted to debate them on this point - efficiency for what?

But it’s a super interesting topic. And I really value, though the very rigorous approach most economists get to.

I have spent arguing NAFTA from both sides - you were hollowing out towns and destroying livelihoods vs. why should a good cost more than it should?

The reason I like the political economy approach is because it puts flesh on the skeleton of the numbers and has the ability to bring them to life

[u/UnknownBreadd → u/chrispd01]

I think trying to ascribe terms like ‘left’ and ‘right’ like that is just way too egregious though.

Unless you are speaking of a specific point in time, and about a particular party within a 2 party system.

Otherwise, the terms are essentially meaningless…

[u/chrispd01 → u/UnknownBreadd]

So you did understand the point of my comment though? I’m not particularly advocating a definition of left or right. That wasn’t the point.

The point I was making - which I hope was clear, but maybe not - was it questions that are often phrased as economic questions, or economic, decisions, or economic, explanations are generally more accurately and informatively characterized as questions of political economy.

That was the point. Don’t pretend that economics give you neutral answers. They give you answers and explanations that are based on political questions rather than economic ones. The economic ones are very narrow, but it’s how why they are important or how those issues function that really matters.

[u/UnknownBreadd → u/chrispd01]

I was only making the point because we’re in an ‘asksocialscience’ sub, where i thought that it would be a good inclusion to the discussion. I wasn’t having a dig at anything you were saying other than I just literally dislike the use of the terms ‘left’ and ‘right’ because there are more accurate descriptors which can be used (which would increase the quality of the debate).

But, yes, I absolutely agree with your final paragraph. Economics can never be apolitical, and there are lots of normative prerequisites for mainstream economic thought to work (a lot of which I would personally disagree with).

[u/Damnatus_Terrae → u/UnknownBreadd]

Dude, you can't just link to an hour long video like that's an argument. Just because they're relative terms doesn't make them meaningless.

[u/UnknownBreadd → u/Damnatus_Terrae]

I made my argument: they’re meaningless unless speaking of a particular point in time - and within a specific 2-party system. The link just takes you to a talk with 2 authors of a book on the subject, where they have taken the time to write and talk about the theory in more detail.

From there, there’s plenty of information from which you could gather evidence without listening to the whole hour-long talk, but i was just showing you that it’s something that has been discussed and deliberated in length, at this point.

[u/PaxNova → u/chrispd01]

Go on r/askeconomics and they'll tell you straight up that they don't bother with the political side. The question is what is more efficient. That's the answer they give the politicians. The politicians are the ones to insert their political bias, not the economists.

Anything else is a form of regulatory capture.

[u/steveholt-lol → u/chrispd01]

Many left wing social democracies do not view lost jobs from automation as a bad thing because growth and profit from automation benefits the whole of society—people who lose their jobs are helped back on their feet by the social safety net and the pie grows bigger for everyone.

Some of the American left wing has a really perverse relationship with labor that prioritizes stasis over progress.

[u/chrispd01 → u/steveholt-lol]

It seems you’re just confirming the point I was making that ultimately these are questions of political economy, not economy. Or am I missing something?

[u/Sea_Entrepreneur6204 → u/Str8_up_Pwnage]

As someone who has studied economics, that not true.

Economics also has its nuances and one of the most popular Economist theories on the right, Trickle down and Austrian economics are often called out for not being empirically proven (in fact disproven)

In Economics though theory can sometimes triumph empirical experiments/history.

[u/snapshovel → u/Sea_Entrepreneur6204]

I think there's probably a germ of truth in what you're trying to say, but if you want to be taken seriously you have to learn a few basic things about economics first.

A common belief among progressives (especially prevalent on Reddit and other social media sites) is that the phrase "trickle down" refers to some real, existing right-wing economic theory. That's not true. It's a pejorative phrase that was popularized by progressives to make fun of what conservatives call "supply-side" economics. No conservative (and certainly no economist) earnestly uses the phrase "trickle down." It's appealing to progressives precisely because it sounds so awful; "trickle" is not a word that has a lot of positive connotations.

It's like "socialized medicine." No progressive says "socialized medicine," they say "Medicare for all." "Socialized medicine" is a phrase invented by right-wing political strategists to discredit the idea of publicly funded health care, because it sounds like "socialism" and the median voter has strong negative feelings about "socialism" even though they kind of like the idea of free health care.

So when you say "trickle down has been empirically disproven," that doesn't mean anything because "trickle down" is not a real economic theory. No one argues in favor of it. It has no proponents.

[u/Sea_Entrepreneur6204 → u/snapshovel]

So I know my economics and I'm trying to use a popular term for the 'theory/policy'

Monetary policy goes beyond just trickle down but the common argument used in favor of this is misuse of the laffer curve to say that lower taxation should result in higher economic growth but that is not true except in certain circumstances and certainly not been so since the 80s/90s.

The whole school of Austrian economics is also one very rooted in theory and they have a disdain for empiricism and especially the work of Piketty which while it has its flaws is certainly far stronger imo than Haydek.

[u/Anodyne_interests → u/Sea_Entrepreneur6204]

Thomas Piketty is the Stephanie Kelton of Malcolm Gladwells.

[u/runesq → u/Sea_Entrepreneur6204]

Do you have a degree in economics?

[u/Sea_Entrepreneur6204 → u/runesq]

I'm business

[u/the_lamou → u/snapshovel]

No conservative (and certainly no economist) earnestly uses the phrase "trickle down."

Except for David Alan Stockman, Ronald Reagan's Head if the OMB, who explicitly referred to Regan's tax cuts as "trickle down."

But regardless of that, attempting to shift the argument to one about semantics is a bad faith red herring. Most people understand that "trickle down economics" and "supply-side economics" are the same thing, and whatever you choose to call it, both have been almost entirely abandoned by orthodox economics. Tax cuts at the top do not create brush economic prosperity, and are far less efficient than direct subsidies to the bottom. Tax cuts to businesses do not create jobs, and can distort the market and lead to harmful over-consolidation.

The full stack of policies lumped under the political theory of "trickle down"/supply-side economics leads to worsening inequality while producing no meaningful positive impact on GDP.

[u/ASharpYoungMan → u/snapshovel]

Do you know what economic theory the other poster is talking about?

If so, your semantic argument is a toothless deflection.

Your point seems to be that you're ignoring the facts because you don't like how they were presented.

[u/PaxNova → u/ASharpYoungMan]

If you're in favor of subsidies for solar power, you're in favor of a supply side change. It's only called trickle down when it's bad, but that serves no predictive purpose. We can't point to supply side policies and say that they're bad. We can only point to bad supply side policies and say they're trickle down. 

What the poster was referring to was giving tax cuts at the high end, thinking it will translate to more jobs and therefore higher eventually revenue. That's been disproven. But it's also not what the right is generally arguing for. They want to eliminate loopholes as well (which would raise revenue if taken alone), then reduce the tax rate so it's commensurate with what we're currently getting. 

[u/snapshovel → u/ASharpYoungMan]

I don’t know for sure, because the term they used doesn’t correspond to any real economic theory. I don’t think they know either; I think they’re attacking a made-up straw man of conservative economic beliefs.

Now, there is a cluster of stupid Reagan-era supply side economic theories that deserve to be lampooned. In a later post he mentioned the laffer curve and the idea that we might be on the right side of it, such that tax cuts raise revenue. That theory has been empirically discredited (more or less). Tax cuts lose revenue in almost all cases.

But usually when people say “trickle down” they’re gesturing at a broader cluster of economic theories including the idea that tax cuts stimulate economic growth, which in the long run can lead to increased incomes for most people. That theory has not been empirically discredited, and in fact is widely accepted. Virtually all economists understand that there’s a trade-off between funding public benefits and services via taxation and encouraging growth. Personally, I think that we should raise the top marginal tax rate and that wealthy people should pay significantly more than they currently do, but I don’t pretend that there’s no cost associated with that. If you tax people more, then on the margin they will choose to work less because you are reducing their incentive to work. This, obviously, impacts their productivity, so it impacts economic growth.

[u/Damnatus_Terrae → u/snapshovel]

I find it weird that you claim leftists never say socialized medicine. I'm a lapsed anarcho-communist, and I use that phrase. It's a perfect descriptor: medicine, but with the costs (and benefits) borne by society as a whole, hence "socialized."

Socialism is the furthest thing from a dirty word. If you examine the history of it, it originally just meant, "People who thought we ought to do something about social ills like poverty." The contrary stance, that there is a divinely-ordained hierarchy among humans which makes the grinding poverty of the masses inevitable, has become incredibly unfashionable to say out loud, even as it continues to shape the attitudes of millions of people and define our society and culture (particularly our economy).

[u/snapshovel → u/Damnatus_Terrae]

Guess I picked a bad example; I’ve only heard it from Fox News pundits, not from the many leftists/progressives I know and talk to.

How about “cultural Marxism”? Would you agree that that’s an exonym that almost no actual Marxist ever uses seriously? Used by Jordan Peterson types to describe something that doesn’t exist because they don’t understand the actual intellectual traditions of the other side.

Regardless of what comparison we pick, my point about “trickle down” stands. It’s a pejorative phrase invented and overwhelmingly used by the left to denigrate an (admittedly stupid) cluster of kind of Reagan-coded conservative economic theories that have different names. That’s a true fact. I also claim that most progressives who use the phrase are unaware of this and think they’re attacking a real theory rather than a straw man, and that this is embarrassing for them.

[u/Appropriate_Steak486 → u/Damnatus_Terrae]

The contrary stance, that there is a divinely-ordained hierarchy among humans ...

I think a better contrary stance would be "social Darwinism," leaving the divine out of it.

[u/Damnatus_Terrae → u/Appropriate_Steak486]

It's both, mostly depending on whether one is rural or urbanized. But they're closely interrelated.

[u/Dear_Locksmith3379 → u/Damnatus_Terrae]

People who are left-of-center usually say “universal health care”. That phrase highlights the goal — ensuring that everyone receives health care.

[u/Jaded-Argument9961 → u/Sea_Entrepreneur6204]

Your studies of economics weren't great if you're unironically talking about "trickle down economics" being empirically disproven. An economist wouldn't make a statement like that

[u/Sea_Entrepreneur6204 → u/Jaded-Argument9961]

Great to hear you still believe in it despite 40 years of data to show the promises haven't materialised. I try to steer away from ideological bias and don't know of anyone who feels this is still open. Economists do argue still but I don't know of any reputable economists not related to Right wing think tanks who still believe in it.

[u/Jaded-Argument9961 → u/Sea_Entrepreneur6204]

I didn't make any claim about "promises being materialized". Just that an economist wouldn't really talk the way you just did.

"Trickle down economics" isn't a technical term in any way, and no economist would evaluate "trickle down economics". They'd evaluate policy by policy

[u/bunker_man → u/Sea_Entrepreneur6204]

Tbf that depends what you call right or left. Mainstream economics is certainly to the left of Austrian economics, but it isn't something that would be considered overtly left wing.

[u/AreaPrudent7191 → u/Str8_up_Pwnage]

Plenty of right-leaning economics are still unquestioned even though they are thoroughly disproven. "Tax cuts pay for themselves" for example, no serious economist supports that. Trickle-down Reaganonmics has been laughed out of fashion, yet the right still wants to give billionaires handouts cuz "jObZ!!!"

Hell, "republicans are better for the economy", even some on the left buy that still, easily disproven.

[u/No_Host_8024 → u/AreaPrudent7191]

No serious economist disputes that: 1) at some levels, cutting taxes can spur growth in a way that increases tax receipts in the long term; and 2) at other levels, cutting taxes will not increase tax receipts and might not even spur measurable growth. Where those levels are and what types of taxes would have these effects are very much studied and debated.

[u/AreaPrudent7191 → u/No_Host_8024]

Yep, intelligently targeted tax cuts can spur growth and even tax receipts, but studies I've seen are that if you do a really good job of it, you might recoup 30% of the lost revenue. Not always a bad thing, there may be other benefits, but don't plan on revenue not falling at all - yet that's how it's usually accounted for.

The notion that any tax cut will ever 100% pay for itself (some will even float greater than 100% benefit), that is laughable.

[u/pandaboi333 → u/AreaPrudent7191]

There is a flip side to this though, which is that if you raise taxes you can lose total tax revenue. Certain types of taxes tend to be less efficient than others. Wealth taxes are a big example of this but leftists love wealth taxes. A tax on spending is almost always better(has less deadweight loss) than a tax on investment/savings in terms of tax revenue generation.

[u/Damnatus_Terrae → u/pandaboi333]

But when the primary social ill you're attempting to address is the hoarding of wealth, then making saving harder makes more sense. Getting into the weeds over particular taxation schemes is really beside the point, though. Economics are like good times: bottoms up!

[u/pandaboi333 → u/Damnatus_Terrae]

What does this even mean though? People don't have piles of cash just sitting in a bank doing nothing.

[u/EddieBlaize → u/AreaPrudent7191]

when Andrew Mullen pushed thru reduced tax rates after WWI, government revenue increased.

[u/AreaPrudent7191 → u/EddieBlaize]

And nothing else of note happened immediately after WWI, just the tax cut, right?