“On a scale of 1 to 10, where 1 means you completely agree and 10 means you strongly disagree, how much do you agree with each of the following statements?
– If a social group becomes rich, it necessarily comes at the expense of another group.
– In international trade, if one country becomes richer, then another necessarily becomes poorer. »
Your answer to these questions is likely to predict your position regarding public policies, tax policies and immigration policies, perhaps even more than your membership in a given political family. This is what a recent study by Sahil Chinoy, Nathan Nunn, Sandra Sequeira and Stefanie Stantcheva (“Zero-Sum Thinking and the Roots of US Political Divides”) shows. NBER Working Papers No. 31688, 2023). Furthermore, your response is undoubtedly conditioned by your family’s experience of economic mobility, and your ancestors’ confrontation with oppression and repression.
These questions, asked by the authors as part of a vast socio-demographic survey, aim to measure to what extent individuals adhere to the idea of a zero-sum game, a concept according to which the economic progress of a given group or individual is necessarily at the expense of others. This conception is of course justified in a world where resources are limited, but not in a world where technological progress allows these resources to grow.
The degree of adherence to the idea of a zero-sum game is therefore the opposite of belief in the capacity of technological progress to deliver economic growth, and in the capacity of the political-economic system to redistribute the fruits equitably between the social groups. And these beliefs determine the political positioning of individuals.
A particularly divisive membership
A vision of economic functioning as a zero-sum game is accompanied by a greater desire to tax and redistribute income, and more favorable support for so-called “positive discrimination” policies, particularly in favor of women and ethnic minorities. But it is also accompanied by greater opposition to immigration. These beliefs are therefore very distinct from classic left-right positions.
However, they can be appropriated by political parties. Thus, in the United States, while supporters of the Democratic Party are more likely to conceptualize the world as a zero-sum game, the authors show that Donald Trump’s speech particularly appeals to adherents of this mentality.
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