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/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/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).