How Scarcity Politics Eats Liberalism

American politics is increasingly organized around a simple conviction: There’s only so much to go around. Only so many good jobs, decent homes, and slots in the social hierarchy. If someone else starts doing better, that’s a threat—it means someone else (maybe you) is getting screwed.

The throughline of MAGA politics is this zero-sum worldview.

Whether it is immigrants taking all the good jobs or other nations developing domestic manufacturing at the expense of American industry or even women’s advancement in the workplace coming at the expense of men, the story is the same: When someone else wins, you lose. You are in a fight over scarce resources, and you have to protect your own.

Now, of course, many interactions are zero-sum: If someone passes you before the finish line of a race, their gain comes directly at your expense. But many other interactions and games are or can be positive-sum. For instance, if more kids know how to read, that’s better for everyone; it doesn’t necessarily come at another person’s expense.

But are the most important economic, political, and cultural questions more like the 50-meter dash or childhood literacy?

Zero-sum thinking is a self-fulfilling prophecy. If you think every extension of opportunity to one group necessarily hurts another, you’ll oppose immigration, trade, new housing, and eventually basic rights for anyone who isn’t already inside the circle. Eventually you get a politics of permanent siege, where every reform is framed as an attack on “heritage” Americans. That doesn’t just leave the country poorer; it makes it almost impossible to sustain a liberal society where people believe rights and prosperity can expand rather than being rationed.

But this isn’t a story about right vs. left. Zero-sum thinking cleaves both parties, and in fact Democrats are more likely than Republicans to hold such views. In a new paper, economists Sahil Chinoy, Nathan Nunn, Sandra Sequeira, and Stefanie Stantcheva ran a massive survey of 20,400 U.S. residents to investigate the roots of zero-sum thinking.

Their analysis reveals that people who exhibit zero-sum thinking are more likely to support more restrictive immigration policies, yes, but also redistribution and affirmative action. The logic of this is that people who believe that some groups are behind because of other groups are more likely to support policies that rebalance that.

Quick caveat here that you can support redistribution, affirmative action, and restrictive immigration policies without holding zero-sum views. For instance, I support redistribution because I think poverty is bad and society is better off when people have a basic standard of living. I don’t think my gains have come at the expense of a homeless person in California, but I do think I should be taxed to help house them.

The crucial difference is that I see these transfers as part of a bigger positive-sum project making the country richer, safer, and more stable — not as payback in a never-ending war between groups. Zero-sum thinkers see only the war, and they vote and govern accordingly.

Liberalism’s scarcity problem

Liberalism is a bet that rights and prosperity can expand together. Zero-sum politics tells people that bet is insane, that any gain for immigrants, minorities, or newcomers must be stolen from “heritage” Americans. If one group’s gain comes at another group’s loss, then it would be masochistic or, at best, extremely altruistic to fight for the political or economic rights of another group.

Not all scarcities are like rainfall, some are choices. Land-use regulations that choke off housing supply are policy-created scarcities that make it rational to fear “competition,” and they keep zero-sum intuitions alive even in a rich country. Research shows that these regulations have limited regional and economic mobility, slowed economic growth, and reduced worker wages. All ingredients for creating a zero-sum society.

by Jerusalem Demsas, The Argument |  Read more:

Image: uncredited

[ed. From the comments (Chris Wasden):]

***

Zero-sum thinking flows from victim identity—the belief that my gain requires your loss, producing Maladaptive responses: immigration restrictions, housing freezes, endless redistribution battles. But as Foster showed, this isn't irrational when growth has genuinely stalled.

The deeper question: Why do wealthy societies manufacture scarcity through zoning, occupational licensing, and educational monopolies? Because victim identity demands control over fixed resources rather than expansion of opportunity.

Classical liberalism bet everything on abundance through creative tension—not just material prosperity, but expanding rights, mobility, and human potential...

The alternative isn't abandoning those in need—it's recognizing that genuine help means expanding opportunity, not managing dependency. Equal access to excellent education. Economic mobility through deregulation. Housing abundance through builder-friendly policies.

...We have chosen scarcity. Liberalism survives when it delivers what those peasant societies never experienced: visible, tangible proof that the pie grows. That's not just policy—it's identity transformation from competitor to architect.