Abortion, government redistribution of income, and leftism

I previously analyzed the PROUDMIL question of the General Social Survey, which asks respondents of they are proud of our armed forces. I discovered that people who are not proud or our armed forces vote Democratic. Evidence of how the Democratic party is the party of choice for leftists.

Another question on the GSS which measures leftism is the EQWLTH question:

EQWLTH 74A. Some people think that the government in Washington ought to reduce the income differences between the rich and the poor, perhaps by raising the taxes of wealthy families or by giving income assistance to the poor. Others think that the government should not concern itself with reducing this income difference between the rich and the poor. Here is a card with a scale from 1 to 7. Think of a score of 1 as meaning that the government ought to reduce the income differences between rich and poor, and a score of 7 meaning that the government should not concern itself with reducing income differences. What score between 1 and 7 comes closest to the way you feel? (CIRCLE ONE):

When we compare the EQWLTH question to the PROUDMIL question, we see a strong correlation. Those who are not proud are more likely to say that the government should reduce income differences. Those who are very proud are more likely to say that the government should not concern itself with reducing differences:

Statistics for all valid cases
Cells contain: -Column percent -N of cases		PROUDMIL
		1 Very proud	2 Somewhat proud	3 Not proud	ROW TOTAL
EQWLTH	1: GOVT REDUCE DIFF	16.8 34	14.7 27	27.3 12	17.0 73
	2	6.4 13	9.8 18	13.6 6	8.6 37
	3	11.4 23	19.6 36	20.5 9	15.8 68
	4	23.8 48	21.2 39	15.9 7	21.9 94
	5	10.9 22	14.7 27	9.1 4	12.3 53
	6	15.8 32	12.0 22	6.8 3	13.3 57
	7: NO GOVT ACTION	14.9 30	8.2 15	6.8 3	11.2 48
	COL TOTAL	100.0 202	100.0 184	100.0 44	100.0 430

The correlation is even more powerful when we restrict the results to people who scored high on the Wordsum vocabulary test, because they understand the issues better:

Statistics for WORDSUM = (8-10)
Cells contain: -Column percent -N of cases		PROUDMIL
		1 Very proud	2 Somewhat proud	3 Not proud	ROW TOTAL
EQWLTH	1: GOVT REDUCE DIFF	9.3 4	4.4 2	29.4 5	10.5 11
	2	4.7 2	4.4 2	17.6 3	6.7 7
	3	14.0 6	26.7 12	17.6 3	20.0 21
	4	20.9 9	17.8 8	11.8 2	18.1 19
	5	9.3 4	15.6 7	5.9 1	11.4 12
	6	16.3 7	20.0 9	11.8 2	17.1 18
	7: NO GOVT ACTION	25.6 11	11.1 5	5.9 1	16.2 17
	COL TOTAL	100.0 43	100.0 45	100.0 17	100.0 105

Perhaps you are thinking that it’s obvious that PROUDMIL and EQWLTH should correlate because they are both Democratic Party issues. However, when we compare the abortion question to the EQWLTH question, they turn out to be almost unrelated to each other even though everyone knows that the Democratic Party is the pro-abortion party:

ABANY 206. Please tell me whether or not you think it should be possible for a pregnant woman to obtain a legal abortion if. ... G. The woman wants it for any reason?

Statistics for WORDSUM = (8-10)
Cells contain: -Column percent -N of cases		ABANY
		1 YES	2 NO	ROW TOTAL
EQWLTH	1: GOVT REDUCE DIFF	8.2 45	11.7 61	9.9 106
	2	10.0 55	10.2 53	10.1 108
	3	20.2 111	15.4 80	17.9 191
	4	16.8 92	18.0 94	17.4 186
	5	14.4 79	16.7 87	15.5 166
	6	12.6 69	9.6 50	11.1 119
	7: NO GOVT ACTION	17.9 98	18.4 96	18.1 194
	COL TOTAL	100.0 549	100.0 521	100.0 1,070

As I explained in my post comparing leftism to liberalism, leftism is a school of thought which involves (a) belief in distributive justice over procedural justice; and (b) hostility to nationalism. Thus the leftist obviously believes the government should redistribute the wealth to reduce income differences, and he also dislikes the military because he lacks nationalistic pride.

Abortion, on the other hand, mostly divides the country along secular libertarian and religious populist lines. Leftists who control the Democratic Party platform support abortion because they believe that it helps to equalize the sexes. However when comparing pro-wealth equalization (populist and leftist) to pro-abortion (leftist, libertarian, and secular), the populist vote pulls in opposite directions, canceling out the leftist vote which pulls in the same direction.

Comments

[michael vassar]

Given your use of the term "leftist", it seems to me that the vast majority of the classical liberals were "leftists" (anti-nationalist, pro-equality). I am also unsure of what term you would use to describe the people who I refer to as "leftist", e.g. Chomsky and his ilk, who whether American, Russian or French are pro nationalist but simply anti-American, prone to laying all of the world's ills at America's feet, and anti-market. Also, Michael Moore seems to be an anti-market populist American Nationalist, as does Pat Buchanan, yet one is seen as "left" and the other as "right" for reasons which seem to be purely matters of alliance rather than of ideology.
I remind you that many Libertarians (especially but not exclusively those concerned with public choice) consider big business to be primarily a government creation and believe that totally free markets would be more equal than the current system, and also that many "small l" libertarians (Murray, Friedman) support a basic income.
In short, it seems to me that your map of how things work is exceptionally accurate, but your map of who wants what is deeply in need of revision.

[Half Sigma]

Pat's right because he's pro America. He's against foreign wars not because he doens't think America shouldn't fight to protect its interests, he just doesn't believe that the wars in question advance America's interests. Pat's pro-middle class, which is not leftist because leftists hate the middle class almost as much as they hate the upper class.

I don't know enough about Michael Moore to say why he's a liberal, but I presume he's anti-war even if the war advances America's interests, and that he's in favor of welfare and means tested help for the poor.

[michael vassar]

Michael Moore seems pretty nationalistic to me. He's definitely not in favor of free trade or immigration. He's definitely in favor of helping the poor, but more like a Christian moralist in prefering destructive make-work over explicit help.
Defined in terms of anti-nationalism and pro-equality Leftists are almost all middle and upper class. I agree that there are a group of people who are generally identified as "Leftists" who are actually hostile to the middle and upper classes, but they are a MUCH smaller group than those who are simply anti-nationalist or pro-equality. There are also, of course, many lower class egalitarian nationalists who hate the upper-middle and upper classes.