Why Are the Highly Educated So Liberal?
I&#x27;m an upper-middle class, over-educated professional expert, and I&#x27;m strongly liberal for selfish reasons: mostly, I want to live in a climate of social peace, and would prefer to be surrounded by people who foster a mood of solidarity and benevolence, rather than a cut-throat and ever-worsening competitive mindset.<p>So sure, one way is to protect myself and those I love behind a gated community. But that&#x27;s pretty much voluntarily throwing myself to jail, I&#x27;d rather make it less necessary for others to be aggressive against my kin. I believe it requires more (and smarter) redistribution.<p>Another reason why it&#x27;s my selfish interest, as a professional expert, to continuously reshuffle wealth, is that my social value resides in what I know and in my ability to learn, not in my family&#x27;s accumulated wealth. Stabilising accumulated wealth, especially across generations, would make it harder to use my skills in order to climb higher on the social ladder.<p>Is my education a factor in this view? Probably.<p>* It helps me grasping some sociological insights which ought to be obvious. For instance, while hearing political speeches about wealth (re)distribution, I stay aware that the property laws are a social construct that must be agreed upon and can be altered at will by society, not a natural (let alone a God-given) law.<p>* It exposed me to a lot of competition, in school then at work, and although I&#x27;ve been a winner on average, I aspire to more fulfilling activities than turning others into losers. I have no revenge to take on others people, I don&#x27;t enjoy crushing them.<p>* Having gone from penniless undergrad to minimum-wage PhD student to well-paid junior then senior specialist, I&#x27;ve experienced a variety of wealth levels. As a result I&#x27;m convinced that once basic needs are addressed, monetary incentives don&#x27;t work the way Adam Smith&#x27; sycophants pretend they do. Money&#x27;s meaningful as a way to keep score, and to compare myself among my social peers; but taxes don&#x27;t affect that much, as long as they don&#x27;t reverse relative wealth between potential peers.