“Could we ever distinguish empirically between cases where outcomes are driven by interests as opposed to ideas?”
Dani Rodrik provides two examples to show the interplay between ideas and interests:
In the first case, the Reagan income tax cut of 1981, evidence suggests it was ideas that was dominant. In the second case, German support for austerity policies in the euro zone, I argue it was interest.
Telling interests and ideas apart
By: Dani Rodrik – Harvard University
Interests or ideas are driving today’s politics?
The French economist Thomas Piketty has recently documented an interesting transformation in the social base of left-wing parties. Until the late 1960s, the poor generally voted for parties of the left, while the wealthy voted for the right. Since then, left-wing parties have been increasingly captured by the well-educated elite, whom Piketty calls the “Brahmin Left,” to distinguish them from the “Merchant” class whose members still vote for right-wing parties. Piketty argues that this bifurcation of the elite has insulated the political system from redistributive demands. The Brahmin Left is not friendly to redistribution, because it believes in meritocracy – a world in which effort gets rewarded and low incomes are more likely to be the result of insufficient effort than poor luck.
What’s Been Stopping the Left?
By: Dani Rodrik – Harvard University
