First, he acknowledges, somewhat surprised, that conservatives are more generous to others, but notes that they like to keep control over who benefits from their generosity. They are very quick to help those who are clearly innocent victims, or those who are perceived as having been on the short end of luck, such as bystanders or those in extreme weather conditions. But as the causes of the misfortune become more ambiguous, conservatives back off. In the cases of folks who have caused much of their own misery, conservatives are not only uncaring, but often hostile. Liberals, he finds, tend to make these distinctions far less often. Suffering in itself calls out for compassion, and more subtly, we seldom can see cause and desert as clearly as we think we do.
The Assistant Village Idiot continues with his own thoughts and feelings:
Contemplating that the free rider problem is an enormous issue to conservatives, I realised that it is an enormous issue to me personally as well. It may explain nearly entirely my siding with conservatives generally despite my objections to them on many fronts. To not be a free rider is as powerful and animating force for me as I can identify. My children were clubbed by it, sometimes in word, always by example. One does his bit, however distasteful, and there’s an end to it.
I make distinctions that many conservatives, or at least the noisier ones, do not, revolving around my fury at their declaring some to be free riders who have had little or no control over their situations. It might be technically true that people with Down’s Syndrome are free riders, but I don’t respond to the helpless that way emotionally, and I certainly can’t find Christian justification for it. You may quote “The one who is unwilling to work shall not eat” as much as you please, but Jesus didn’t seem to address beggars in that way, nor did Peter and Paul. Yet you can find Christians who draw the circle very widely of who is a free rider and who is not. I find it infuriating.
Yet at some level, I get it. I apply a very high standard to myself on such matters (or did until a few years ago; there are lacunae in the fabric now). I have little sympathy for those who ride free off others — and I have known some quite well. One consequence is that I no longer regard their opinion on any moral issue as having the least weight. If hatred for free riders turns out to be heritable, and a common cause of conservatism, I would put down money that I have plenty of genes that could play out that way.
I wonder if income uncertainty affects one’s attitude to free riders.
Farmers from where I am from tend to be conservative and they very much do not like free riders. Farmers’ source of income is very uncertain. It depends on unforseeable circumstances, especially the weather and the exchange rate.
Liberals don’t make these distinctions, because they tend to blame everything on institutional racism, sexism, or the ongoing legacy of slavery.
Nothing is ever anyone’s fault; it’s always something holding people down. No freeloaders, only victims awaiting justice! Personal responsibility contradicts that notion.
I don’t think this is right. Consider the issue of water in California. The liberals in California are very quick to punish free riders who don’t abide by the water restrictions. Obamacare is explicitly built on punishing free riders who don’t sign up for health care. Free riding is really about reciprocity. I do this, and you reciprocate. I limit my water, and you your water. Gay marriage is the same – gays recognize straights right to marry, and vice versa. From the liberal point of view, the problem with Christians is that they don’t reciprocate, and if they won’t reciprocate, they will be compelled.
It’s not right to say that conservatives are more concerned with moral hazard, because the left has a solution for moral hazard: more government compulsion. The real difference is that conservatives don’t believe the primary social problem is fairly dividing up a limited pie. That can be solved by compulsion. But it’s a secondary problem to that of making more pies. And you can’t make more pies except via voluntary coordination and reciprocity, not by compulsion.