Why is NYC so liberal, when it is the capitol of capitalism?

[bobweaver]

[Dookus]

1. Capitalism and liberalism needn't be mutually exclusive

n/t

[bryant69]

29. Amen

Bryant
Check it out --> http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com

[sir_captain]

2. Several reasons

It is the capital of culture in the whole world

Densest population of highly educated people in the world

Capitalism is not inherently conservative, obviously

[ultraist]

11. Education/awareness/worldviews

I agree. NYC is a mecca for high culture, it's very diverse, and has a highly educated population. People gravitate to NYC to be in an enriched environment. Furthermore, growing up in this environment helps to create open minded individuals.

Poorer states where individuals are not exposed to other cultures, the arts, and are less educated, tend to have a limited understanding of the world around them. Thus, they are more susceptible to the propagandizing of the right wingers.

[GRLMGC]

3. Liberal does not equal communist

NYC is liberal because it is so diverse and people are forced to interact and understand one another.

[KG]

4. unions are a factor.

[sleipnir]

5. Unofficially, it's because Jesus has a place on the UWS.

n/t

[sandnsea]

6. Why are red counties so broke,

when they're the biggest promoters of free trade. It's that way in my state anyway.

Liberal capitalism works; invest in your community and business and people want to come and do business. Let your community fall to ruins with no culture or recreation or education, people and business leave. We ought to work that into our search for American values somehow.

[ScrewyRabbit]

8. What sandnsea said!

Reject the paradigms that the right-wing feeds us.

Incidentally, I believe in progressive agendas and I work for a fiercely capitalist corporation. I don't see this as a contradiction at all. The market works well for some things, and government works well for others.

[jrthin]

12. Well put. n/t

[double_helix]

14. Yes, but many businesses are leaving areas like NY

and relocating to areas with less regulation/taxation.

It is wise to invest in the community (and wise to expect returns/results/accountability), but there is a point at which regulation starts to stifle growth instead of facilitating it.

IMO, the very red areas underinvest and the very blue areas overinvest - both are inefficient and anti-growth.

[sandnsea]

16. Suuurrree they are

That's what they want you to believe. This was all brought out during the California campaign. Bustamante showed that it wasn't true. The only businesses that left California were the ones that expected the taxpayers to subsidize their labor costs which aren't helpful to the state anyway. They contribute to poverty and the downward spiral. Look at the south. Did they benefit from the businesses that moved there back in the 70's and 80's? Did it raise their standard of living? No. Did the consumers benefit from lower prices? No. The only ones who benefitted were CEO's who saw their incomes increase 500x and stockholders who saw similar gains. Conservative economics only works for the rich and it's most evident when you look at predominantly red states and counties. Have you seen the map of who pays federal taxes and who receives the benefits? Very telling.

[Art_from_Ark]

19. Actually, as one who grew up in the South,

I would say that the businesses that moved into my area did tend to raise people's standard of living, at least in the '70s and '80s. However, wages do not seem to have kept up with the cost of living there: everything is going up-- property and sales taxes, health insurance, fuel, groceries, higher education, housing, etc., while wages seem to be stagnant.

[sandnsea]

20. Oh, from Arkansas, goodie

I lived there briefly in 1981 and 1987. I remember in '81 people were working for $2.00 an hour. Mostly black people. I couldn't take that and left. I moved back briefly when my mom was sick. Spoke to a woman who had moved down from Detroit with Remington. Her job had gone from $14 down to $9 down to $7. By 1987, the entry level pay had dropped to minimum wage. That's why your standard of living didn't keep pace. Because you refuse to unionize. Do you think the chicken farms would get away with hiring illegals with strong unions? Do you think they'd get away with dropping your wages year after year and giving all the profits to the CEO and shareholder?

It isn't elitism that causes northerners to call southerners stupid. It's exasperation.

Nothing personal, it's just that this refusal to fight for a fair days pay for an honest days work annoys the shit out of me. Democrats sacrificed and bled and died for worker's rights and the so-called brave southerners pissed it all away. :crazy:

[Art_from_Ark]

23. No one in my part of the state was working for $2.00/hour in 1981

Whoops! On second thought, waitresses and blueberry pickers were making close to that. But for most people, $3.25 was minimum wage, and there were certainly lots of min-wage jobs around. But you could get a job at one of the local factories (well, not poultry plants) for $5/hour or more, which was considered good money there at the time. Houses started out at about $20,000, so a lot of people were able to become homeowners, so yeah, back in those days local people's standards of living were rising a bit.

As for chicken farms hiring illegals, I think most of the illegals are actually working in the processing plants. In the beginning, the locals would accept jobs even in the processing plants, which is about the most disgusting kind of work you can imagine. When other jobs become available, the locals hightail it out of the processing plants. I don't think they would stay, even if the plants were unionized.

[sandnsea]

33. Typical

Are you sure you're on the right site? First, I did hiring for a janitorial service in 1981. Maybe you didn't know black janitors were being paid less than minimum wage, but they were. I specifically remember one black married couple, both working two jobs, one for $2 something an hour and the other for my employer, which paid mininum wage. In 1987, we couldn't even find work in Arkansas, but Remington was paying $4 for the few jobs that were available. Slightly over minimum wage. (Another great Republican economic "boom". :eyes:) Our rent was $300 a month. We had savings, thank god. My sister sold her home around that time for $40,000 and it was just a regular 3 bedroom. I know housing is cheaper in Arkansas than some areas, but it's never been cheap enough to get by on minimum wage jobs.

Before that I worked at a potato shed here in Oregon, doing payroll. So I know how the whole illegal thing in processing plants works. They said the same thing after amnesty, they wouldn't be able to get white workers. Guess what, they did. In CA and AZ they say they can't get white workers do to landscaping, construction, or service jobs. Well guess who does that work in Oregon and Montana. White people.

I don't have a personal problem with immigrants at all. But I do have a problem with people who blame them for labor problems when they're the ones who won't stand up to the bossman who hires them in the fist place. The only way to do that is to organize. I don't know when the south is going to figure it out.

[Art_from_Ark]

36. Typical? Typical what?

Is it too difficult to accept the fact that back in those days, my part of the state and your part of the state were different? Your rent was $300/mo, mine was $160 when I got my first apartment back in '84. My family bought our house for $24,000 in 1980. My friend from high school bought a fixer-upper for $15,000 a few years earlier. At that time, the influx of relatively high-paying jobs from mostly out of state made it possible to increase one's standard of living in that area. The same is not true today, as I duly noted.

[JHB]

28. see the sig

My own thought is that NYC is so liberal precisely BECAUSE it's the "capitol of capitalism".

Nothin' like seeing it up close and personal to know that some things will go overboard (and sink the ship) unless they're properly counterbalanced.

[Dorian Gray]

34. I would agree with that if I didn't live in NYC.

Actually, most of the investment bankers I know, and those who work in the financial industry, are actually Republicans. (Not the Social Republicans that we all know and love, but rather Republicans because they want the low taxes.)

I think that it is rather the high immigrant population in NYC tied in with the high artistic community that makes this city such a liberal place. Plus, most Conservatives I know are actually fiscal conservatives, not social conservatives.

[maxudargo]

7. I have no idea

But I love the Redneck Zombies thing...

[Zen Democrat]

9. Why is Mississippi so Republican when it's the poorest state?

[itzamirakul]

10. Probably because of the very large population of

artists, writers, thinkers, intellectuals, etc.

Since 911, NYC's population has grown a great deal. A lot of newcomers have migrated in from "red states" and many have said that they have changed their outlook from being conservative to being more liberal as a result of that move. On the other hand, many of the newcomers bring their old prejudices and anal mind-set into the mix also.

In NYC, people have to make a lot of adjustments because no matter how much money you may have and how lovely your loft or apartment may be, often right next door lives a low-income family, a movie star, or perhaps a family of newly-arrived immigrants.

All kinds of cultures and ethnic groups strive for a pied-a-tere in NYC (a piece of the earth - a place to be)so people are FORCED to get along. NYC is so crowded that there just isn't much room to be stand-offish. You are crowded up against strangers of all kinds on the streets, subways, buses, elevators, restaurants, stores, and everyplace you go. Each of those strangers considers himself/herself important also.

Not many people really care who you are, what scandal you were involved in or how much money or power you have unless they want something from you. This is truly the only place on earth where you can be ANYONE that you want to be today and then be someone ENTIRELY DIFFERENT tomorrow and no one gives a damn as long as it doesn't affect them. In fact, they rarely notice...

[ClarkUSA]

13. Why are rural areas so full of Bushies?

You're obviously not from New York. :smoke:

Sophistication + education + wealth + cultural tolerance = liberalism

[itzamirakul]

18. I live in Hell's Kitchen...in the very heart of Manhattan...

so what didn't you get about my post?

My post was in response to the original question...prhaps you might want to read it again.

[Stephanie]

31. I think the poster makes a very good point

It's hard to retain your class/race/sexual orientation etc. prejudices when you are sharing a bus seat, an apartment building, a crowded sidewalk, a workplace.

[double_helix]

15. Because social liberalism and capitalism go hand in hand.

Both are free markets/free systems, where the proponents often don't want regulation, or only want regulation which helps them.

Social liberalism combined with capitalism is essentially the old the Republican party, i.e moderate libertarianism.

As much as both liberals and capitalists disagree, they have a very symbiotic relationship. Capitalism works by appealing to the widest audience possible, and they do this by being inclusive, or socially liberal. Social liberalism works by getting it's message out through the culture - mostly through entertainment, which is owned by capitalists.

[ldf]

17. very large black and gay and student populations

for a start. and the black population is high density = high number to apartments.

i would imagine that a lot of the "rich" are republicans. but there are a lot of rich jewish democrats.

a lot of intellectuals/students. they usually tend to be democrats, or a least tolerant/liberal (maybe green, but will vote democratic).

it seems that the nyc hispanic population tends to lean more democratic that republican. they also tend to be high density = high number to an apartment. of course there are some exceptions.

unions do tend to be democratic as a group, but not necessarily individually. (remember hillary's treatment by the police/firemen benefit for 911, and they tend to be unionized.)

and of course, to feed, cloth, drive, clean up after all those people there are the poor black and hispanics service workers, who tend to be democrats.

gays go democratic, obviously, except for our few log cabin boys.

just my thoughts. your mileage may vary.

[oscar111]

21. East European immigrants, circa 1900

I have always had the impression that that wave of immigrants was the reason. The last names of some of the LW politicos over in NYC, seem to bear this out.

Parent to child transmission of political views is amazingly repetitive.

A similar case, is the Milwaukee one. LW germans settled there, and Milwaukee has had LW mayors for much of the last century.

NYC has had a strong LW presence for many generations.

As for the Capital of C=ism idea,
i never before heard it called that. I would say that the finance district workers are possibly a tenth of the metro population, no more. An island in the sea of grandkids of immigrants from eastern europe.

Some very illogical re's above this re. Their abstract theory musings are just plain wrong in many of them. Read them with a grain of salt, for they are not echoed anywhere else on the planet. Truly unique thinking in those re's ! LOL To say the least. LOL

The repub mayor BTW, spent .. was it three or five times... as much as Mark Green, the liberal, to win office. He should not be the mayor. Mark Green should.

Brooklyn and Harlem are the most LW of the subareas of NYC, i have read. G Village i am sure, is close behind, if not pulled ahead by now.

Q. which is more LW, Berkeley in CA, or
G. Village in NY?

Any place more LW in america?

[Skidmore]

22. Because you can't pile that many people on top of one another

and not have to find a way to get along, or chaos would ensue.

[dr.strangelove]

24. Are liberalism and capitalism mutually exclusive.

I consider myself a liberal and a capitalist. I consider it the responsibility of government to set the boundaries for capitalism to operate, but within those boundaries, American businesses can lead the world in innovation and responsible development. As a liberal, I work to strengthen the boundaries, the regulations and the oversight of businesses to make sure they are developing responsibly. As a capitalist, I want innovations to come with competition, which both lowers the price for consumers and increases productivity and efficiency.
I am a New Yorker (or New Yawker) and am thrilled that my city is both.

[El Fuego]

25. Because they are liberal about social issues

You can be socially liberal and fiscally conservative.

[annabanana]

26. numbers, and good public education

and daily exposure to the cultures, languages, religions and habits of others. "Furriners" don't scare us. And the Big Lies are exposed everyday in our lives.

[htuttle]

27. Because the Republicans got you fooled

Republicans don't stand for capitalism (say, as described by Adam Smith).

They are more into cronyism, corporate socialism/corporate welfare, and good ol-fashioned fascism.

Capitalism thrives in a socially liberal climate. Which city makes more bucks: Paris or Tehran?

[gorbal]

30. It's not just about being liberal

Talk to any stock broker or economist about Bush and you'll get what I mean. There ARE conservative thinkers in New York, but in their mind Bush is anything but conservative.

[One_Life_To_Give]

32. Capitalists don't live in New York

They just work there.

[patcox2]

35. Because liberalism actually creates more wealth.

Seriously. Liberal policies and attitudes are more conducive to innovation, more likely to produce a productive society. Remember, the point of all social programs is to help more people succeed, and the more people succeed (the greater percentage of the population whon are "making it," the more wealth in the society.

When your policies promote universal home ownership, everyone can own a house, then your housing industry booms. Promoting a living wage means people can afford to live in nice communities, not slums. Subsidizing college educations increases everyone's earning power.

Look at the world out there, what you will see is that in every country with liberal government and policies (social security systems, worker protections, labor unions, environmental protections) there is less of a gap between rich and poor, and there are far fewer truly poor. France, Germany, the US, the Scandinavian countries, Canada, all are places you would want to visit and where its safe to walk the streets.

But in countries run by right wingers, there are a few rich, and vast amounts of real poverty. The rich aren't even safe in their own country, the poor have to result to brigandage and are always on the verge of revolt, so the rich live in walled enclaves. Most of south america provides the example for this. What wealth there is comes from extraction-type industries (Bush's specialty) and not from production or innovation.

Look at America's Bible belt, it has never produced anything innovating, never been much of a manufacturing power. Now there are factories being moved there, by companies which of course grew and prospered in liberal areas, just to exploit the cheap labor, but thats not creation of wealth or innovation.

So, the answer is that its cause and effect, liberalism makes a country prosperous, reactionary anti-intellectual, anti-change, divisive conservatism drags a country down.