> FWIW I'm far left myself, so it's not like I'm complaining.
So perhaps it's just sycophancy after all?
> I'm sorely tempted to say that it's because the reality has a liberal bias, but I'll let other people repeating the experiment to make the inference on their own.
What political left and political right mean differs between countries and between decades even in the same country. For example, at the moment free trade is very much not an idea of the 'right' in the US, but that's far from universal.
I would expect reality to have somewhat more consistency, so it doesn't make much sense for it to have a 'liberal bias'. However, it's entirely possible that reality has a bias specifically for American-leftwing-politics-of-the-mid-2020s (or wherever you are from).
However from observations, we can see that neoliberal ideas are with minor exceptions perennially unpopular. And it's relatively easy to win votes promising their repeal. See eg British rail privatisation.
Yet, politicians rarely seriously fiddle with the basics of neoliberalism: because while voters might have a very, very interventionist bias reality disagrees. (Up to a point, it's all complicated.) Neoliberal places like Scandinavia or Singapore also tend to be the richer places on the planet. Highly interventionist places like India or Argentina fall behind.
So perhaps it's just sycophancy after all?
> I'm sorely tempted to say that it's because the reality has a liberal bias, but I'll let other people repeating the experiment to make the inference on their own.
What political left and political right mean differs between countries and between decades even in the same country. For example, at the moment free trade is very much not an idea of the 'right' in the US, but that's far from universal.
I would expect reality to have somewhat more consistency, so it doesn't make much sense for it to have a 'liberal bias'. However, it's entirely possible that reality has a bias specifically for American-leftwing-politics-of-the-mid-2020s (or wherever you are from).
However from observations, we can see that neoliberal ideas are with minor exceptions perennially unpopular. And it's relatively easy to win votes promising their repeal. See eg British rail privatisation.
Yet, politicians rarely seriously fiddle with the basics of neoliberalism: because while voters might have a very, very interventionist bias reality disagrees. (Up to a point, it's all complicated.) Neoliberal places like Scandinavia or Singapore also tend to be the richer places on the planet. Highly interventionist places like India or Argentina fall behind.
See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impact_of_the_privatisation_of... for some interesting charts.
https://pseudoerasmus.com/2017/10/02/ijd/ has some perhaps disturbing food for thought. More at https://pseudoerasmus.com/2017/09/27/bmww1/