Something I like to say is that despite the large quantity of rhetoric on this subject, actual politics in America has basically nothing to do with support or dislike of free markets. I was glad that over the weekend I came across this TED Talk from Jonathan Haidt laying out his account of the real moral foundations of politics. He says there are five main categories of moral concern — harm, fairness, loyalty, authority, and purity. Liberals care a lot about harm and fairness, and not much about loyalty, authority, and purity. Conservative, by contrast, care about all five values about equally and they care about them all less than liberals care about harm and fairness but more than liberals care about loyalty, authority, and purity.
He has an interesting little online questionnaire where you can rate yourself. You can see me above. I’m a typical liberal on four out of the five categories, but I have a conservative-esque view of fairness.
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