To be generous, Judge Posner may have intended this post as satire, in which event it succeeds wonderfully.

But if that is not the case, Posner's claim that the "Hollywood film industry follows taste rather than creating taste" is simply insulting to anyone who is old enough to remember the days when the mass media in America was not the pervasive 24/7/365 influence it is today.

If Posner believes otherwise, he really needs to get out of chambers more.

Very interesting post. But, to a certain extent, I disagree with your assessment that Hollywood must necessarily "follows" the trends. I think what may infuriate the right so much at times is the ability of film and other media to affect those very trends.

As an example I can recall the very first "gay" characters in movies or on television. They may have been "stereotypes" but over time, they can become acceptable and can change perceptions.

A very good recent example is the television series "24" which had as its central premise a black presidential candidate who later became president. The show did not make a point of the "blackness" of the candidate. In fact there was so much going on that you rarely ever noticed that fact. Who is to say that this fictional presentation has not had its impact on the current campaign. I am not saying that "24" will get Obama elected, but it portrayal of a black president perhaps has allowed us more easily to accept this as a reality .

Imagination is an important part of persuasion. However, I guess one could still argue that this is doing nothing more than pulling on values that are already there? But how did we get there? It is what 40 years now between "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner" and "24." There is a whole string of cultural creations that in sometime subtle ways encouraged us to see African Americans as equals.

Again, while I recognize the economic analysis, I think there may be some externalities here that bear consideration.

Very interesting post. But, to a certain extent, I disagree with your assessment that Hollywood must necessarily "follows" the trends. I think what may infuriate the right so much at times is the ability of film and other media to affect those very trends.

As an example I can recall the very first "gay" characters in movies or on television. They may have been "stereotypes" but over time, they can become acceptable and can change perceptions.

A very good recent example is the television series "24" which had as its central premise a black presidential candidate who later became president. The show did not make a point of the "blackness" of the candidate. In fact there was so much going on that you rarely ever noticed that fact. Who is to say that this fictional presentation has not had its impact on the current campaign. I am not saying that "24" will get Obama elected, but it portrayal of a black president perhaps has allowed us more easily to accept this as a reality .

Imagination is an important part of persuasion. However, I guess one could still argue that this is doing nothing more than pulling on values that are already there? But how did we get there? It is what 40 years now between "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner" and "24." There is a whole string of cultural creations that in sometime subtle ways encouraged us to see African Americans as equals.

Again, while I recognize the economic analysis, I think there may be some externalities here that bear consideration.

How does one explain movies with a strong (left!) political slant that do poorly at the box office? The goal is propaganda over profit. There are people in Hollywood using other peoples' money to pay for promoting their politics.

As to Charlton Heston being extremely conservative, uh no. Mr' Heston marched with Martin Luther King in the '60s. As President of the Screen Actors' Guild he introduced Dr. King to the leaders of Hollywood's technical unions to get them to open up to minorities.

Are you referring to Mr. Heston being President of the National Rifle Association? Why don't you see that as a continuation of his civil rights work? As an illustrative example, Roy Innis of the Congress of Racial Equality is a lawyer specializing in 2nd amendment issues. Mr. Innis is on the board of directors of the National Rifle Association and it seems like he's been there forever. He is around 78 years old and still working for voter rights around the world.

People watch movies for many reasons: to experience drama and catharsis, to enjoy spectacle, to escape from humdrum reality, to laugh, to observe depictions of beauty, heroism, revenge, sex, death, love, loss, war, music, dance, the far corners and peoples of the world, or anything that can be put on screen. Some number must also hope to see something completely new, perhaps even shocking, and, occasionally, to learn something. Whatever their motivations, moviegoers surrender their time and attention for a couple of hours to someone else's vision. Perhaps it is in the nature of the audience mindset that people who have more liberal perspectives are more likely, on average, to enjoy movies.

If the audience for movies tilts liberal, perhaps liberals are best able to sympathize with, understand, attract and satisfy the customers.

Why is Hollywood dominated by liberals? My guess is that, as with most people, those in Hollywood choose to take their politics, and
other ideas, by default, i.e., to blindly accept them from their particular milieu.
Ironically, the so-called "Golden Age" of movies featured studio heads that were conservative. They had no problem producing movies that were patriotic (as was the case during during World War II). Today's studio heads, aging baby boomers brought up in the 1960's and 70's, no doubt feel it is their patriotic duty to preach the gospel of Michael Moore and others like him.
In the end, movies--no different from books, televison, magazines, etc.--are a reflection of the culture. And that culture is decidedly left-leaning in three central areas: academia, the media and Hollywood. Nothing less than a change in the culture will herald a change in the movies.

Here's a quote from an odd source: Solzhenitsyn's famous Harvard address in 1978. I believe his statements about "the press" are now applicable to "the media" generally -- Hollywood being a part of that. Thirty years on, the corporate marketers' ability to identify "tastemakers" and trends within target demographics is well documented. See, e.g., the excellent PBS Frontline documentary "The Merchants of Cool."

"It is a fashion; there are generally accepted patterns of judgment and there may be common corporate interests, the sum effect being not competition but unification. Enormous freedom exists for the press, but not for the readership because newspapers mostly give enough stress and emphasis to those opinions which do not too openly contradict their own and the general trend."

Hollywood is a subset of a big city urban class that is predominantly liberal. You might as well ask why most big city lawyers are liberal or why most big city (insert occupation) are liberal. Thus discussion on why most folks who live in big cities are liberal would be more appropriate.

One noted irony is how the 'threat' of movies, that promote libertine and non-traditional lives, is so equally feared by Amercian conservatives as it is by Islamist fundamentalists. Neither group want the cinema, the internet, even the published media to intrude upon, or steal the hearts and minds of, the populace. On what topic, other than the perceived degrading effect of cinema and TV, do the Neocons and the Islamafacista agree?
On your topic of why does Hollywood tend to attract and to employ those on the liberal side of politics: thinkers, artists, writers - they make movies. Their intellectual pursuits require departure from accepted views, they deconstruct, dissemble, recast, rethink what the populace 'thinks' about. Doing that is the antithesis of propaganda, which repeats, restates, regurgitates an unchanging message and unwavering viewpoint.

What both posts overlook is that conservatives don't just lack a visible presence in Hollywood. In general, they don't have much presence in the arts in general. (I should note here that I am, yes, a liberal who enjoys this blog.) Let me explain via anecdote: I spent a good chunk of my life involved in creative work, from high school through college and at the Writer's Workshop at the University of Iowa. Simply put, you encounter almost no politically right-wing persons in this field, and this largely holds true even among people too young to be concerned with careers.

Furthermore, although there are currently hundreds (if not thousands) of literary journals being published in the United States right now, but I can think of only one (The New Criterion) that publishes politically right-wing content. And I know that The National Review publishes book reviews, criticism, etc. But there is no conservative New Yorker, no conservative New York Review of Books, no conservative Paris Review.

True, there are definitely notable conservatives who write poetry and fiction (e.g., the very intelligent Dana Gioia, and it wouldn't surprise me if Wallace Stevens voted for conservatives). However, overall, it does seem like some element of the conservative culture dissuades young Republicans from pursuing art, or at least from pursuing art with amount of hard work required to become competent at it.

You're missing the point if you believe that artistic types gravitate toward left-wing politics because liberals take a more permissive stance toward drinking, drug use, and sex. Again, on the basis of my anecdotal experience, whatever bad behavior occurred at the Writer's Workshop was nothing compared to what occurred in the frat houses. The young Republicans in the frats made us seem like amateurs!

I've tried to formulate a reason for how this disparity started, but every reason seems reductive. Why are there few Republicans in Hollywood? Perhaps for the same reason that there are few Liberals on Wall Street.

Easy answer: creativity and conformity rarely go hand-in-hand, so creative people (whether actors, writers, directors, or forward-thinking studio executives) are likely to challenge the status quo. That explains both the "extreme left" and the "extreme right" elements of Hollywood.

Also, movies that "sell" tend to focus on compelling personal stories rather than on stories about how best to maintain the integrity of the system. The typical hero challenges the "system" and, by winning, makes life better for everyone. That is a very "progressive" outlook on political change. Slow but steady progress and carefully-targeted reform do not make for good theater. So it is no mystery that "theatrical" types will be temperamentally liberal in their political attitudes, seeking a complete, "great society" makeover of the system.

The Film industry is a business like any other, "if it pays it plays". If not ... And what plays? The New, the Different, the Exciting, the Out of the Ordinary. Who is going to pay good money to see the pedestrian, the ordinary, the mundane? No one who is looking to escape the Ho-Hum, drabness and mediocrity of their daily lives for a couple of hours. Escapism sells, big time. What could be simpler?

Yet, as a media, it has the tremendous power to educate or indoctrinate on command. This is why the Conservatives are so frightened of it. "If we can't control it, the Liberals certainly won't." It's all simply about power and control. Realpolitik anyone?

The key reason so many Hollywood types are liberal is that it is very hard to be smart and well educated without turning into a liberal. Sure you can be smart and poorly educated and be a conservative, or you can be stupid and go to the best schools and still cling to the conservative ideology. But, if you are smart like a Hollywood Jew and have read a few things, you are going to think that individual freedom and liberty are goals to be struggled for.

It is no accident that the states with the worst education systems are the red states. It is also no surprise that the right wing wants drugs outlawed, don’t believe the propaganda, they hate a free market. What exactly are conservatives trying to conserve, the divine right of kings?

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Not sure where to begin on this highly subjective and speculative piece but perhaps:

Posner waxes nostalgic on behalf of "conservatives" over the "break down of the Hays code? Well Judge the industry has grown and matured since those days of sweeping things under the carpet and has (perhaps sadly) become the literature of our time for many, perhaps most. Why would we want to keep up a pretense that married couples sleep only in twin beds and that men don't have chest hair?

As for the product the LAST thing we'd want would a hierarchy imposing its values on any art form. Looking back over the last century of American literature, from Twain, to Hemingway and Fitzgerald to Mailer and many others the best of their works questioned the established values of their age. If there is anything to lament about Hollywood it is that there is far too much mindless pap and not enough substance, questioning or investigative journalism.

What would conservatives favor? Reel after reel proclaiming our love of flag and apple pie? Horatio Alger fables even as upward mobility in America has fallen behind that of Germany and others? The presidents' versions of various wars instead of the truth and drama of those who returned disillusioned and or in wheel chairs? Between Disney and a host of love stories aren't there enough Norman Rockwell covers to provide a balance?

Well............ enough. For now. Jack

Posner writes:

"The nature of their work, which combines irregular employment with high variance in income, an engagement with imaginative rather than realistic concepts, noninvolvement in the production of "useful" goods or service, and, traditionally, a bohemian style of living (a consequence of the other factors I have mentioned), distances them from the ordinary, everyday world of work and family in a basically rather conservative, philistine, and emphatically commercial society, which is the society of the United States today."

Other posters have said that creativity and conformity do not go hand in hand and that smart people tend to be liberals as explanations for why liberals seemingly dominate the creative arts.

I'd suggest that the answer is the a variant on what Posner wrote. It's not that the lifestyle distances the artist into from conservatism, to me, that suggests that younger or newer artists should be more conservative than their older brethren, which is the opposite of my experience. Instead I suspect that those characteristics he lists cause people with a liberal mindset to be more drawn to the lifestyle than those with a conservative outlook. Stated differently, the qualities of the lifestyle cause liberals to disproportionately select it, rather than somehow adjusting their thought processes until they become liberal.

I certainly do not believe that conservatives, being conformists, lack creativity. They simply that they channel their creativity in different ways. There are plenty of professions that reward creativity that are more conducive to a conservative life. Mathematicians, economists, architects, engineers, lawyers, doctors, business executives, etc. can be as creative as an artist, and yet the payoffs are more regular and the lifestyle tends to be less bohemian. Besides, as I note below, to be a liberal in Hollywood *is* to conform. The social norm for an artist amongst one's peers in Hollywood is liberalism, and social pressures encourage conformity to that norm, so people do.

As for high education leading to liberalism...well, by and large actors in Hollywood are not that highly educated. They seem to lead a fairly insular lifestyle and are unaccustomed to being challenged. When challenged they often insult the person holding the contrary position. Many of them read what they can in liberal magazines and spout it back as if it were their own original thoughts on the issues. (Not to say that people on the right aren't also doing the same things, as often they are.)

It might be true that educated people in the west tend to become liberal, but that conjecture doesn't explain Hollywood. It seems more likely that, given the insularity I noted, Hollywood is subject to social feedback that reinforces liberal positions. We are social animals and are generally very much susceptible to peer pressure. With the conservative voice being drowned out, by and large, one would expect the average person to conform to those opinions that are prominent, eventually internalizing them. (One also would expect a few contrarians who go the other way, but the majority of people conform to the norms of the social group, even if the social group is liberal.)

Just to be clear, I have nothing against either liberals or conservatives, have many views that lie on both sides of the political spectrum, and have friends at the extremes of both.

Panda sez: "It might be true that educated people in the west tend to become liberal,"

Well that one's likely not true, as CA has grown more conservative over the years with much of the growth being "educated" engineers, techies, and financial managers of Orange County and the surrounding regions. Mostly, I'd put forth that it's rural areas that tend to lean "conservative" (quotes as I no long know what is conservative about today's brand of "conservatives".)

By state the "Blue" band runs from NY and New England across the northern states and down thru WA, OR and CA, but urban areas such as Austin TX, Atlanta, GA and Miami also lean "liberal".

As for "Hollywood" and the film producing industry's rejection of what constitutes "conservatism" today, I'd suggest that they are joined by most authors, musicians, teachers, journalists and economists other than those hired on with "conservative" think tanks.

David posts: "The typical hero challenges the "system" and, by winning, makes life better for everyone."

jjjjjjjjj Indeed. What sort of story would it make if the smoking industry, corporations that pollute, and corrupt politicians won the day? The film ending with "Whew! that was a close one, glad we got rid of that little pain in the backside, well, back to buz?" Goliath stomps Sampson?

Perhaps this is a good time to make a comment on the political spectrum. I find it easy as a common sense, pragmatic "liberal" to talk with a similarly sensible and pragmatic, principled conservative and end up thinking the political spectrum is a circle with good conservatives and thinking liberals seated next to each other with slightly differing approaches to a similar goal.

Who's on the other side of the circle? Rent seekers and those of both parties with little philosophy beyond seeking favorable treatment for their industries along with those of the "faith-based" community who never tire of pushing for a theocracy in which their religion is the established religion and law of the land for all. Currently they and their heavily funded lobbying and "think tank" are advancing their agenda over that of either thoughtful, true to their principles conservatives and similarly thoughtful liberals.

As for high education leading to liberalism...well, by and large actors in Hollywood are not that highly educated.

well, by and large, people working in hollywood are not actors. writers, producers, directors, sound people, video techies, prop guys, etc greatly outnumber actors...and many/most of these people are educated. given that your starting premise is wrong, it's no surprise that the rest of your analysis is similarly wrong.

As Panda points out, there is always conformity among self-selecting groups. Hollywood "liberals" and "conservatives" alike are suckling at the same teat: an entertainment industry that produces, markets, and sells products.

Cover photos of Angelina's beautiful face wearing a mask of sadness and concern as she tours Africa sell magazines. Angelina's likeness engaging in fashionable humanitarian activity is the image, becomes the product and is part of the "Hollywood" brand. I would find her equally attractive were she to wear a grey Chairman Mao outfit and tour a factory floor (Far-left-styled Angelina) or dress in camouflage to entertain the troops (Far-right-styled Angelina). Sex sells and the biological impulses her image appeals to in me are quite divorced from political ideology.

Indeed, Judge Posner's 7th Circuit issued a landmark ruling some years ago on the subject of intellectual property rights to performer's images... Everyone here agrees that image has value and that the scripted and studied appearance and graceful carriage, the charisma of an actor is value added to a media product.

I submit that the significance of the "liberal" leanings of Hollywood personalities should be regarded as a feature of the Hollywood brand. George Clooney's soulful eyes and sensitive side are well suited to roles as "establishment figures who find conscience" (Michael Clayton, Syriana, etc., etc.) Are these roles political statements or sexual statements designed to attract female viewers?

Now that we have established what actors are, let's determine their price.

It is not clear why some are attempting to equate conservatism with conformity, with the status quo, or with lack of intelligence. The general essence of political conservatism is a belief that less government is better than more. Reasonable people can disagree regarding whether more or less government is better. Relying on the market certainly has challenges, but in my observation, irrespective of the party in power, government has a poor track record of achieving its objectives efficiently and cost effectively -- so this leads me to be a political conservative.

Alternatively, if the comments are intending to define "conservative" in a social context, it is a mistake to assume social conservatives are all, or even mostly, Christian extremists just as it is a mistake to assume all liberals are pot-smoking whores.

Judge Posner, you jangled a lot of chains and brains! Good for you. Values may be progressive. At the end of the road will we be happy with our choices? Although Meryl Streep's character says "everyone wants to be us" in THE DEVIL WORE PRADA maybe yes maybe no. I doubt if OJ Simpson can honestly say he is happy with his choices. I doubt that Nicole Simpson was happy with her choices. I doubt that Anna Nicole Smith was happy with her choices. And I heard (hear say) that not all the lawyers in silk stocking Steptoe and Johnson like firms are happy with their choices either. And the facts you site....hummmmmm....someone might need a good course in the consumption of statistical data in the political arena...not all of the stats you use are FACTS....as a judge I understand you have to base your decisions on something but really, there are very few facts. I bet some days you are not even happy with all of the decisions you have issued and once in a while might rethink your position which has affected the unknowable and uncountable many. It seems that today with our current world situation people are very uneasy ....while Hollywood may be glamourous to the young and impressionable just as sports may be, the healthy happy hero habits of the non Hollywood/non jet set sports figures are the habits that will endure regardless of occupational choice....yeah for Professor Becker that he cited his spouse in his blog! Hey, and what about Senator Clinton's ELECTRIC speech last night at the Democratic Convention? There is a true leader!

Sadly, the only times the media gives us a more balanced glimpse into the innards of Hollywood are when its icons-of-the-day behave badly. The folks out there who comprise the glue that holds the pieces together go largely unseen, unheard-from except when performing. Reagan was the mega-exception. But you don't hear much from the Clint Eastwoods. Or how about the late Johnny Carson? Hollywood's "liberalness" is another illusion. Most mainstays of the film and televison industries figure out pretty early that their careers depend upon living healthy, well-managed lives. But since when has the media succeeded in distinguishing fact from fiction?

TM, Really! "The Govenrment has a poor track record of acheiving its ojectives efficiently and cost effectively"? What about the settling of a continent and the setting up of the fifty states via the "Ordinance of the Northwest Territory" or its derivatives. How about the development of a continental transportation network that is the envy of the world? Or how about the development of communications networks the rest of the world is beginning only to realize? Much like this Internet thing that was originally Arpanet, a government developed system that was given away? Perhaps, I shouldn't even mention the Education System in the U.S. that has developed through governmental desire for universal public education or the Land-Grant College System that everyone around the world is trying to get into. All this was a clause in that Ordinance mentioned above.

Before you condemn someone for the misapplication of a term, I suggest you look it up in a dictionary first. It will give you a really interesting understanding of the terms, "Conservatism" and "Liberalism".

Sorry Man! It all just doesn't jive with the facts or history.

I clearly didn't say, nor did I imply, that government is always unsuccessful. Of course it is successful at times and many times it isn't. The local, state and Federal governments all failed in responding to the citizens' needs from Katrina when there were some nice examples of private enterprise and non-profits responding more quickly and effectively. Your education system is an interesting example. You focus on the colleges and universities when I think many would view the performance of primary and secondary public schools as something less than successful. As an example, the Catholic school system (no I'm not Catholic and do not intend to send my children to a Catholic school) is able to educate children with equal or better results for a considerably lower cost per student. This has been found to be a result of considerable waste at the administrative level in the public school systems. I have dealt with Washington DC Public Schools and know that it can and should be run much more efficiently. There are thousands of frequently unmotivated employees sitting in a very expensive new building and adding little or no value the children in the classroom. You may view the public schools as a success, but I don't. I live in an area with toll roads managed by a government agency and other toll roads managed by a private enterprise. The private enterprise is able to better serve the public, spend less in the process, and make a profit -- good for them.

TM, Then we should privatize and deregulate the World ala-Enron, Worldcom, Tyco, S/L's and the current crop of Financial Institutions, etc., etc.?

We've got Toll-roads too. Ours are managed by the Government and work just fine. What's your problem?

As for the D.C. school system, that's a "make work" project for otherwise unemployable individuals. Which would you rather have, people sitting in offices or out on the streets selling guns and drugs out of a car's trunk in a back alley someplace?

Low barriers to market entry are one reason why the first vendor in a market does not always become the market leader. In a new market, the differences between products are very low. It is easy to develop a competing product. So, the winner is one who can bring in the most partners and users and build relationships that are difficult to break.

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mikewilliams

New York Alcohol Addiction Treatment

Neilehat, of course, I find that the most extreme approach is typically the most appropriate and successful. I think we should outsource the role of executive, judicial, and while we're at it, the legislative branches. I think KBR would be an excellent choice -- probably in a no-bid setting as well.

The Enron, Worldcom, etc. theme is tired and absurd. There are dirtbags in the business world just as there are dirtbags in government. Equating business in general with Enron is like equating all of government with Rep. Jefferson, Gov. Spitzer, and Senator Stephens. Actually, now that you have introduced the topic of Enron, I think that the government's reaction to Enron was more destructive than any original malfeasance at Enron. In response to Enron, the DOJ destroyed a firm of 70,000 professionals on a case that was overturned unanimously by the Supreme Court. The legislative response was not much more effective with Sarbox. I think the market would have done a much more effective job of punishing without the unintended consequences and collateral damage of this legislation.

I'm hurt that you left me off of your congressional dirtbag list, TM. Got any toilet paper?

Larry

Larry, Just one question: "When you live in Idaho, work in D.C., why do you go to Minn-St.Paul of all places to have fun"? Talk about "living in your own private Idaho". ;)

TM, Not withstanding the Supreme Court's decision (and I won't even mention it's oversteping it's bounds in the last election), when was the last time Cal. had a brownout? Perhaps the D.O.J. was right after all.

BTW, what does all this have to do with "Liberalism in Hollywood"? Oh, I know, "Hollywood Liberals" caused the brownout and meltdown of the Cal. Power Grid while in league with the Minutions from Alpha-Centauri so that Arnold could get elected Governor.

Liberals are generally right-brained and tend to be touchy feely types and that fits most "artists" and people in the "arts". They have their usefulness as conservatives do as well. Too much of one or the other might not be great for public policy but a balance might be.

In terms of governmental efficiency, I suspect that there is a curve somewhere that suggests that there is an optimal size-and-complexity-efficiency ratio. Not to mention that the purpose of our government has been expanding relentlessly since the original congressional federation.
Don't forget that the failure rate of any human machine or organisation is the product of the failure rates of it's individual parts, not the sum.

Liberals are generally right-brained and tend to be touchy feely types and that fits most "artists" and people in the "arts". They have their usefulness as conservatives do as well. Too much of one or the other might not be great for public policy but a balance might be.

In terms of governmental efficiency, I suspect that there is a curve somewhere that suggests that there is an optimal size-and-complexity-efficiency ratio. Not to mention that the purpose of our government has been expanding relentlessly since the original congressional federation.
Don't forget that the failure rate of any human machine or organisation is the product of the failure rates of it's individual parts, not the sum.

TM sez: " The general essence of political conservatism is a belief that less government is better than more."

"Conservatives seem to have lost their way and their original principles to the extent that we need different terms for that of ACTUALLY shrinking the government's role and cost and those "conservos??" from Reagan on who've certainly claimed to be conservatives but have gone on the wildest spending sprees imaginable once they acquire power. In our era it seems a choice between the social safety nets of the "left" and socialism for the corporations and sole source scamming of "outsourcing" of the "right"........... in short we'll pay at least as much, and with "conservatives" have to top it off with paying increasingly burdensome interest on the massive D E B T they've built up.

Hollywood movies! I like it

Regarding the comments that education leads to liberal views...While it is true that those that are more educated are more likely to be liberal _socially_ (abortion, gay rights etc) they are not more likely to be more liberal economically. Those that are highly educated are split among conventional liberal views and more libertarian-Republican views.

Neilehat,

To answer your question: the Twin Cities are the only municipalities to have adopted minimum-width standards for men's room stalls.

As a conservative, I oppose Big Government intrusion into my personal life and support expansive rest room space that simulates the wide open ranges where brave cowboys once roamed and lived manly lives doing manly things.

I treasure my time in those spacious sanctuaries of manliness, thinking manly thoughts. Thinking about cowboys.

Larry

I would approach the analysis from a different point of view - I would see what kind of movies are being produced and to what success. Why? Because most action films follow the Roosevelt corollary and portray some rendering of the frontier myth which was exulted greatly in the westerns and actions films such as Die Hard, Lethal Weapon, and Clear and Present Danger. All these films are very conservative in that they follow the Roosevelt corollary inasmuch as the hero must break rules and become like the enemy to overcome the threat only to return to the arms of his woman that our hero may be re-adjusted to society. Clearly, this application of the corollary may be liberal in essence because it breaks with the conservative norms established by the laws. In another point of view, the application of the corollary may be seen as conservative where the barbarians are handled by a righteous individual where no one else did anything or remained scared of the barbaric enemies. However, less of these movies are being made. We see more often action movies where the hero only acts for his benefit or enters some quest that is of individual interest and that he must fight to have his experience (most of which break with any conservative interest). The other movies seem to make fun of conservative interests and expound the need for more liberalism. I would not classify hollywood by census data more than I would by its product - after all, that is what Hollywood is and isn't.

I would approach the analysis from a different point of view - I would see what kind of movies are being produced and to what success. Why? Because most action films follow the Roosevelt corollary and portray some rendering of the frontier myth which was exulted greatly in the westerns and actions films such as Die Hard, Lethal Weapon, and Clear and Present Danger. All these films are very conservative in that they follow the Roosevelt corollary inasmuch as the hero must break rules and become like the enemy to overcome the threat only to return to the arms of his woman that our hero may be re-adjusted to society. Clearly, this application of the corollary may be liberal in essence because it breaks with the conservative norms established by the laws. In another point of view, the application of the corollary may be seen as conservative where the barbarians are handled by a righteous individual where no one else did anything or remained scared of the barbaric enemies. However, less of these movies are being made. We see more often action movies where the hero only acts for his benefit or enters some quest that is of individual interest and that he must fight to have his experience (most of which break with any conservative interest). The other movies seem to make fun of conservative interests and expound the need for more liberalism. I would not classify Hollywood by census data more than I would by its product - after all, that is what Hollywood is and isn't.

Neil sez somewhat tongue in cheek: .......... that's a "make work" project for otherwise unemployable individuals. Which would you rather have, people sitting in offices or out on the streets selling guns and drugs out of a car's trunk in a back alley someplace.
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But you bring up a serious topic. Consider that as our jobs disappear to robotics, offshore or to greater efficiency our per capita productivity goes up, having doubled and more during 25 years when median and lower wages have been flat. That is half and more of our people are not benefiting from the increased overall wealth.

So.............. do we continue post depression "make work" generation of marginally productive jobs? Or do we find ways to quit some of the pretense of having to be "bizzy" all the time, shorten the work week and use other means of distributing the wealth of the nation?

A recent item pointed out that today the top 1% of "earners" have the same amount of income as does the lowest paid 153 million. From a macro approach we may be at the same point as we were in 1929 in which the whole thing stagnates or crashes in part because lower income folk have next to nothing to spend on the products being produced in surplus.

The other reason is that a subtle shift from "job "creation"" to wealth generation would likely conserve precious non-renewable resources and generate more wealth and more wealth (actual) person.

One thing is certain and that our democracy, like that of Mexico, Brazil and others will not work if we continue down the road of haves and have nots. The current system in which the new tech creates wealth that accrues to the small cadre owning the factors of production would seem to continue to leave unneeded workers in the dust while more and more accrues to the MSFTs, GEs, and Walmarts.

Hi,I am a chinese student ,and I ma a junior now .As we know ,the Chinese economics made us difficult to find a job. I want you to give to some advice .Thanks.My email is neeting87@gmail.com
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Why do conservatives claim that conservatives dominate pro-business interests (low taxes, less regulation) and that liberals are bad for business (taxes, regulation)?

Conservatives may be more likely to exclude people than liberals, who may have a more inclusive worldview. Excluded people have to go somewhere, and the process of exclusion may have refined artistic senses. Perhaps you'd see more conservatives wind up in entertainment if more conservatives persecuted and excluded each other in a systematic or subliminal fashion.

Hollywood's liberal roots flow from the sentimental reaction in the early 1800's to the science and quantitative successes of the industrial revolution. "Truth is beauty, beauty truth" was Keat's ode to a sentimental view of the world which bifurcated the world in to liberals and conservatives. Whereas,the rational industrial revolution was based on science and quantitative critical thinking, the rapid economic change wrought havoc to many lives. While quantitatively,the standard of living was increasing dramatically for most, the sentimental reaction was to embrace feeling and reaction to the plight of the poor. Hence,the novel Frankenstein which is very much an anti-science theme. Then came Dickens' Scrooge, an owner of a quantitative house, and the plight of the poor working man and the disabled. These emotional themes are played out still in anti big-business movies from Hollywood. Karl Marx's thinking was heavily influenced by his reaction the perceived excess of people force off farms to make way for sheep to supply wool to the cloth factories. That together with Jewish intellectual affinity with the idea of the collective, he provided an philosophical base for those who react to themes of injustice and social inequality. (That they create the killing fields of communism or the political police states of centrally planned economies in the name of rectifying those problems is to them an enigma and a paradox) Other themes such as the inequality of wealth distribution, prisoners wrongfully imprisioned for fighting the system or anti-war writings that focus on the human element like the Red Badge of Courage found their inspiration in the sentimental vision.
The word liberal also morphed from one that favored free markets and rejected mercantilist policies into one that embraced social causes. The fact that Hollywood sells emotion,and that the politics of the writers and actors are neo-Marxian is not hard to understand. This does not mean that Hollywood cannot produce a patriotic movie like Saving Private Ryan, but the predisposition of the writers is to focus on the emotional heroism of characters. So, the world is now made of two types : those for whom 'what you think determines how you feel', and those for whom 'how you feel determines what you think'. I am over here with the scientists, economists and engineers analyzing the situation, and I feel very strongly about my position.

After reading Judge Posner’s comments this week, I am puzzled over several of his remarks that seem to make little sense or are left unsupported by evidence. His commentary seems devoid of economic explanation for the decline in popular culture. I shall list some of the passages that I found to be unsupported by logic or evidence. Let’s begin with this one early on:

Posner: “The left end of the political spectrum in this country is still somewhat more respectable than the right end, and so if one finds a class of persons who are drawn to political polarization, more will end up at the far liberal end of the political spectrum than at the far conservative end, yet it will be polarization rather than leftism as such that explains the imbalance.”

My comments: This passage seems to be a mess logically. There are more leftists because artists are drawn to extremes. What about rightists? Why aren’t there comparable numbers of rightists in the arts if the issue is simply that artists tend to extremes ? Polarization in itself does not explain why the left dominates.

Posner: “An ideology attractive to solid bourgeois types is unlikely to be attractive to cultural workers as I have described them. So we should not expect those workers to subscribe to the conventional political values, and apparently a disproportionate number of them do not.”

My comments: Okay, now we have an explanation offered as to why there might be more leftists in the arts (or at least “Hollywood”). I would certainly include a Bohemian lifestyle or a positive take on it as part of the leftist agenda. But this analysis seems to contradict what we read above about rightists being extremists , too. Solid values are part and parcel of the middle of the political spectrum rather than rightist . For example, many of the Romantic poets were conservative (e.g., Coleridge, Burns, German Romantics), but they hardly fit the mold that Judge Posner associates with conservatism. In our times, the 1993 University of Chicago sex survey shows that those on the far left and far right tend to have sex more frequently. Artists before the rise of the radical left in the 18th Century were probably more sexual and idiocyncratic than average people, but they were not leftists or as openly rebellious against traditional morality. We still need an explanation for the leftism and openly Bohemian lifestyles that deliberately flaunt traditional morality that have become more prominent relatively recently.

Let me suggest that while an artistic temperament might delve into the creative and unconscious aspects of the mind accessed via the right hemisphere and interior parts of the brain making artists prone to being more open to experience, their behavior in the past might have been less openly defiant against social norms because prior to the late 19th and early 20th Centuries, artists were more heavily subsidized by aristocrats and religious institutions. Not wanting to offend their patrons or having more overt constraints placed on them as the work was commissioned, artists’ work in these earlier times reflected the tastes and values of their patrons. So, we can account for the difference in behavior by considering differences in the constraints artists faced while assuming their preferences remained the same.

Posner: “But if Hollywood based its selection of movies to produce and sell on the political views of the studios' owners and managers, that would be commercial suicide, as competitors would rush in to cater to audiences' desires.”

My comments: This statement makes a number of questionable assumptions. How competitive is the motion picture or television business? What are the start-up costs for a fledgling production company? Mel Gibson has produced a couple of conservative movies that have done very well at the box office. Other conservative Christian movies have done quite well. On television, *Nick at Night* and other cable channels that show older, more traditional televisions shows have done quite well as have channels that show older, more traditional movies. The question is why haven’t others exploited these tastes? Fox News has shown that there is a market for conservatives in network news. This market niche went unmet for decades before Rupert Murdoch challenged the Liberal News Media's oligopoly. There was certainly some kind of barrier to entry into the news business. Could there be similar barriers in the film and television entertainment industries?

Posner: “The idea that Hollywood is a propaganda machine for the Left is not only improbable as theory but empirically unsupported."

My comments: Well, we need a study on how many films and television shows are more traditional and how many are more nihilistic. I would suspect that until the 1970’s there were many more traditional films and television shows that did quite well commercially. My suspicion is that there are many more television shows and movies that challenge traditional norms since 1970. Some have been successful while many have not.

Posner: “If conservatives bought the studios and reinstituted the Hays Code they would soon be out of business. But what is true is that when movie audiences demand vulgar fare, then given that conservatives are more disturbed by vulgarity than liberals are, the film industry becomes less attractive to conservatives as a place to work in. This may be an additional reason for the left-liberal slant of the industry. But as long as the industry is an unregulated competitive industry, market forces will prevent studio heads and owners from trying to impose their own values on audiences, rather than trying to create movies that are in sync with those values.”

My comments: Again, the evidence that we have says otherwise with the success of films that are more traditional or even overtly Christian. Also, again, how competitive is the film industry? Judge Posner here does seem to admit that there might be a dynamic in the film industry that is at work that excludes conservatives . Judge Posner argues in another passage that the bias might have worked in the other direction in previous times. It might be instructive to study how this reversal of fortunes occurred.