Thinking about authoritarianism, unregulated market ideology and empathy

In the last few days, a couple of things have raised the issue of empathy for both the public interest and individuals. MAGA ideology and politics is a major driver of this inquiry. I suspected that social science about authoritarianism and libertarian free markets would be marked by less empathy than normal reference point data. I asked Pxy. My suspicions were generally right according to this short analysis.

Q: How true is this?: "Lots of people sympathetic to authoritarianism or libertarian free markets seem be hostile to, or completely reject, the concepts of the public interest and empathy for individuals who don't play by their their rules. Lack of empathy for anyone or group outside of ones-self seems to be a pretty common thing."

A: The statement that individuals sympathetic to authoritarianism or libertarian free markets often reject concepts of public interest and empathy for those outside their rules is broadly supported by research, though with nuances depending on the ideology. Here's a breakdown:

Authoritarianism and Empathy
Authoritarian systems prioritize centralized power, repression, and hierarchical control 1 7. Key traits linked to authoritarianism include:

Low empathy: Authoritarian individuals often display indifference to others' suffering, prioritizing rigid hierarchies and in-group loyalty over compassion 6.

Prejudice and exclusion: They tend to categorize people into groups, supporting discriminatory policies and rejecting diversity 6 7.

Rejection of public interest: Authoritarian regimes and their supporters frequently undermine democratic accountability, favoring corporate power or elite interests over collective welfare 7.

Libertarianism and Empathy
Libertarian ideology, particularly its right-wing variants, emphasizes individualism and minimal government intervention. Research highlights:

Lower empathy scores: Studies show libertarians score lower on empathic concern compared to liberals and conservatives, correlating with skepticism toward altruism as a moral duty 2 5.

Hostility to social programs: Critics argue libertarians prioritize tax reduction over social safety nets, framing such programs as coercive 3 7.

Nuanced perspectives: Some libertarians argue empathy drives their focus on removing harmful policies and fostering community-based solutions rather than state intervention 4.

Ideological Asymmetry in Empathy
Neuroimaging and psychological studies consistently find:

Liberals exhibit stronger empathy responses: Left-leaning individuals show higher neural and self-reported empathy, motivating support for egalitarian policies 5 8.

Conservatives and libertarians: While conservatives may extend empathy to in-groups, libertarians often resist systemic empathy-driven policies, reflecting a prioritization of individual autonomy 3 5.

Conclusion
The claim holds merit, particularly for authoritarianism, which structurally opposes empathy and public welfare. Libertarian free-market ideology also shows tendencies to devalue systemic empathy, though some proponents frame their goals through a lens of voluntary cooperation. Both ideologies contrast sharply with liberal emphasis on collective responsibility, illustrating a broader ideological divide in how empathy and public interest are conceptualized 2 5 7.

That's just one low-level analysis, but it feels right to me[1]. That feeling is based on research results I believe I correctly recall, even if I can't point to the research papers and books that informed my opinion. 

AI & job loss update & analysis of MAGA-style deregulation

“Social responsibility is a fundamentally subversive doctrine” in a free society, and have said that in such a society, “there is one and only one social responsibility of business–to use it resources and engage in activities designed to increase its profits so long as it stays within the rules of the game, which is to say, engages in open and free competition without deception or fraud.” ― Milton Friedman, 1976 Nobel Prize winner in economics, The Ethics of Competition and Other Essays[1]

Quartz magazine writes about corporate bullshit and doublespeak, e.g., “upskilling analysts to oversee AI output”, obscuring the fact that AI is taking more jobs away from humans: 

Job cuts are hitting knowledge workers from entry-level to management, from tech-forward companies to more staid corners of Corporate America.

Simplice Fosso opened Slack (CRM) in March and saw a green checkmark next to his team’s name: “✅ automation.” It was small, just an icon and a single word. But it meant his role as Head of Security Operations at a major consulting firm was gone.

For months, he’d watched as his employer developed and tested a machine-learning system that could detect and sort security threats — his team’s function — until the digital system was as accurate as the human one. This meant no more 2 a.m. pages, but Fosso was wary. At first, leadership spoke of “upskilling analysts to oversee AI output.” Soon, the language shifted to “efficiency gains.”

“Between December and January, I oscillated between relief and self-doubt,” he said in an interview. “I told family and close friends this was a wake-up call to pivot, while privately wrestling with frustration and a bruised ego.”

Then came the layoff.

What happened to Fosso is happening to knowledge workers across the U.S., from entry-level to management, from tech-forward companies like Accenture (ACN) to more staid corners of Corporate America. The larger waves of layoffs make the news — Microsoft (MSFT) cutting software engineers, Duolingo (DUOL) replacing bilingual contract writers, Walmart (WMT) cutting its technology team just last week.  

Many more don’t make headlines. They live inside calendar invites, Slack channels gone suddenly silent, group chats that turn to gallows humor, and remote happy hours once the axe finally falls. They’re in job listings that never get posted because the jobs no longer exist.  

“It feels like you’re basically defunct — that you’re being replaced by something better than you in a way that you can’t achieve,” [behavioral scientist Steve Krastev] said. The speed of the AI wave washing across the corporate landscape makes the shift even more unsettling, as security gives way to uncertainty. “It’s a lot more difficult to compete with something evolving so quickly that you can’t predict,” he said. You’re being pitted against something that isn’t another human.” (emphasis addded)

On the government side, MAGA elites are hell-bent on deregulating businesses, and deprotecting workers, consumers, democracy, civil liberties, the rule of law and the environment. That is crystal clear by now. The gigantic MAGA lie is that great benefits will flow from unleashed but empathetic businesses to deprotected workers, consumers and environment. On the corporate side, business elites are hell-bent on cutting regulations, taxes, costs and labor as much as they possibly can, sometimes more than they can.

Q1: How much empathy, defined as helping fired people get new jobs, do you believe will most of the deprotection elites have for workers who lose their jobs to things beyond their control, e.g., AI, djt’s destructive tariffs, vast corporate corruption, etc., none to almost none (at most, sympathetic lip service, e.g., ‘thoughts & prayers’), some (~1 month severance), modest (~3 months severance pay), significant (~6-8 months severance pay), or a lot (paying to retrain and find new jobs for workers)?  

Footnote:

1. I asked Pxy about Friedman’s and MAGA’s vision of the best way to do business:

Q1: In this quote by Milton Friedman, “Social responsibility is a fundamentally subversive doctrine” in a free society, ....[quoted above] engages in open and free competition without deception or fraud”, exactly what are the rules of the game? Where are these rule written? How are those rules enforced? What penalties do rule-breakers face? Exactly how are the concepts “open and free competition” and “without deception or fraud” authoritatively defined or described? Is what Friedman talking about mostly smoke and mirrors to justify deregulation, or something of substance akin to state and federal laws against fraud and deceit of consumers and abuse of workers?

A1: Friedman’s framework, while grounded in substantive federal law, operates within a complex regulatory environment that extends far beyond simple prohibitions against fraud and deception. The evidence suggests that rather than being mere “smoke and mirrors” for deregulation, Friedman’s doctrine relies on a robust legal infrastructure.

The primary legal foundation for Friedman’s “rules of the game” centers on federal antitrust legislation, particularly the Sherman Act of 1890 and the Clayton Act of 1914.  

.... long analysis .... 

Friedman’s prohibition against “deception or fraud” finds its primary statutory expression in Section 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act, which prohibits “unfair or deceptive acts or practices in or affecting commerce.”

Q2: Based on your analysis, it sounds like modern MAGA elites strongly reject Friedman’s assertions and instead are dismantling the robust legal business regulation infrastructure at the state and federal levels, arguing that (1) unregulated markets will police themselves and protect the interests of consumers and workers, and (2) enforcement of existing rules is too burdensome and in some cases, the rule will no longer be enforced. That is in accord with the goals of Project 2025 and the rhetoric and behavior of Trump and MAGA elites since 2017.

A2: The modern MAGA movement’s approach to business regulation represents a fundamental departure from Milton Friedman's conceptual framework while simultaneously exploiting ambiguities in his “rules of the game” doctrine. While Friedman emphasized profit maximization within a legal structure prohibiting fraud and anticompetitive behavior, the Trump administration and Project 2025 have systematically weakened both the regulatory infrastructure and enforcement mechanisms that underpin Friedman’s vision.

.... long analysis ....

While Project 2025 claims that markets inherently discipline bad actors 5 10, evidence from Trump’s first term reveals systemic failures. For example, rolling back methane leak detection rules increased emissions by 850,000 tons annually 14, externalizing costs Friedman assumed would be prohibited 16. Also, suspending FDA food safety inspections correlated with a 62% increase in recalls for bacterial contamination 11 16.

Institutional Demolition
Key enforcement mechanisms are being disabled:

Antitrust: The FTC’s workforce reduction from 1,132 to 700 staffers 7 has decreased merger challenges by 44% 14.

Environmental Justice: Eliminating the EPA’s Office of Environmental Justice External Civil Rights 14 19 halted 78 community-led pollution cases in 2025 alone 18.

Redefining “Deception and Fraud”
The FTC’s narrowed definition of materiality—now requiring proof of direct financial harm 14—excludes: (1) Greenwashing claims without immediate cost impacts, and (2) discrimination in lending, which legal loopholes for predatory practices Friedman sought to prohibit 16.

Conclusion: The Illusion of “Self-Regulating” Markets
The MAGA movement’s policies expose fundamental flaws in both Friedmanism and libertarian economics. By dismantling the regulatory infrastructure while claiming to enhance market freedom, MAGA actions create conditions for monopoly power, externalized, socialized costs, and systemic fraud. Those are precisely the outcomes that Friedman’s rules of the game aimed to prevent. Project 2025 represents not a refinement of free-market principles but their subversion, replacing legal guardrails with ad hoc crony capitalism. The result is a market structure that privileges incumbent corporations over genuine competition, undermines consumer welfare, and shifts regulatory authority from democratic institutions to private boardrooms—a system far removed from Friedman’s vision of profit-driven efficiency within clear legal boundaries.

The end of the Senate filibuster: A disaster for our democracy

The American Prospect reports that Senate Republicans are now openly ignoring their own rules so they can pass laws without the filibuster blocking the way. The Repubs are doing this to get djt's bill passed. That bill can be informally called the tax breaks for rich people, no support for poor people, lots of corruption, and lots more debt for the rest of us law. To do it over Dem Senators' opposition, Senate Repubs are simply ignoring the Senate's rule keeper's inconvenient assertions that they are breaking their own rules. The Senate's rule keeper is called the Senate parliamentarian. TAP describes it like this:

It’s refreshing in a way that we no longer have to spend much time thinking about the Senate parliamentarian, the shadowy figure whose rulings supposedly decide what the Senate can and cannot do. Republicans put that to bed last week by overruling the parliamentarian over whether a Congressional Review Act (CRA) resolution could nullify the Environmental Protection Agency’s waiver allowing California to set its own air pollution standards on vehicles.

Only executive branch agency rules can be overturned by a CRA resolution, and only within 60 legislative days after being presented to Congress, in an up-or-down vote that avoids the Senate filibuster. The Senate parliamentarian, joining the auditors at the Government Accountability Office, said that the EPA waivers were not “rules” as defined by the CRA, and therefore couldn’t be put into a resolution. Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT), in a communication he sent last Congress about these very EPA waivers, agreed that the “federal preemption waivers cannot be reviewed under the Congressional Review Act.”

Yet Senate Republicans said, “Tough, we’re doing it anyway.” And Lee voted with them.

California says that it will sue to maintain its waiver, arguing that the Senate had no authority to overturn it. But here is the gigantic problem: The Senate operates mostly on precedent. The precedent is now set that the parliamentarian can be been disregarded on this point. Now, any action the executive branch takes could be construed as a rule, and therefore subject to fast-track congressional review. All of a sudden the filibuster has been effectively circumvented while Repub Senators can say they did not get rid of the filibuster, they just reinterpreted Senate rules to allow them to bypass it.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune argued that the situation was "novel" and the Senate has the power to establish its own interpretations of its own rules when faced with unprecedented circumstances

Democrats have denounced the planned vote since parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough, a nonpartisan arbiter of Senate rules, sided with the GAO finding. If followed, the determination would have prevented Republicans from considering the waiver at a simple majority threshold. Republicans argue that the waivers should be considered rules under the Congressional Review Act. That is the stated interpretation by both the House and the djt administration.

The Washington Examiner writes in an article entitled, Thune ignores parliamentarian to tee up California emissions vote:

“This debate is not about destroying Senate procedure, or any other hysterical claim that Democrats are making. And I have to say that my colleagues’ newfound interest in defending Senate procedure is touching — if a touch surprising,” Thune said on Tuesday. “It’s only last year Democrats were planning to destroy one of the bedrocks of the Senate, the legislative filibuster, and of course Democrats’ concern about overruling the parliamentarian is a bit unexpected, given Democrats’ documented history of attempting to do exactly that,” he added.

In a defiant speech from the Senate floor, Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) insisted that Republicans were not weakening the filibuster by ignoring the Governmental Accountability Office, which found the standards are not subject to repeal.

MAGA's Senate smoke, mirrors & fig leaf

MAGA Repubs used a sophisticated procedural maneuver to ignore the parliamentarian's ruling. It is designed to avoid the appearance of directly overruling the Senate's nonpartisan rules referee. Instead of explicitly voting to override MacDonough's ruling, Thune employed creative Senate rule interpretations to create new precedent during Senate proceedings. The majority leader structured the vote in a way that allowed Republicans to claim they were not directly contradicting the parliamentarian while still achieving their policy objective of passing the resolution with only 51 votes.

How big a deal is this? I asked Pxy for a detailed analysis. I think Thune and Senate Repubs are cynical liars and this is extremely important. Gutting the filibuster is something I predicted last November after the 2024 elections [1]. 

Q: Rank the importance of this from 1 (low importance) to 9 (highest possible importance) in terms of the overall Senate impact of ignoring the parliamentarian in this situation on (1) democracy, (2) the rule of law, and (3) the remaining vitality of the Senate filibuster. Take into account Trump's and MAGA elite's clearly authoritarian politics, e.g., Project 2025, and their mendacity and deceit in political tactics and rhetoric.

A: (analysis greatly shortened to avoid TL/DR) 

1. Impact on Democracy Rank: 9/9
Ignoring the parliamentarian in this context represents a direct assault on democratic norms by enabling unilateral simple majority rule.

2. Impact on the Rule of Law Rank: 8/9
The rule of law depends on adherence to established procedures and respect for nonpartisan arbiters like the parliamentarian. Senate Republicans’ decision to override Elizabeth MacDonough’s guidance 2 4 14 —rooted in the GAO’s legal analysis 9 10— substitutes partisan preference for objective interpretation of statutory requirements.

3. Impact on the Filibuster’s Vitality Rank: 9/9
This action constitutes a de facto "nuclear option" for expanding filibuster exceptions. By bypassing the parliamentarian to pass legislation with a simple majority, Republicans are chipping away at the 60-vote threshold’s relevance. While framed as a "narrow exception" 6 14, the precedent empowers future majorities to similarly disregard procedural guardrails, accelerating the Senate’s shift toward simple majority rule.

In short, Senate Repubs have weaponized procedural loopholes to bypass the parliamentarian. This guts the filibuster and inflicts maximum institutional damage within existing Senate rules. MAGA Repubs have (i) eroded democratic accountability, (ii) further weakened already weak rule-of-law norms, and (iii) rendered the filibuster almost irrelevant. It constitutes trifecta of democratic and rule of law damage that mirrors Project 2025’s vision of basically unchecked authoritarian power. 

Footnote:

1. This was my Nov. 6, 2024 prediction right after the elections: If the Repubs maintain control of the House, I expect the Senate to get rid of the filibuster. That would give Repubs in congress free reign to pass whatever laws they want with no serious opposition from Dems. The only requirement there would be unity within the GOP, something that Trump is more than capable of imposing on them.

The Repubs didn't get rid of the filibuster, they just bypassed it. I consider this prediction to be ~90% fulfilled, i.e., a lot more right than wrong. What is left of the filibuster is a fig leaf.

We are constantly being lied to

This ABC News report quotes djt as saying that federal prosecution of a corrupt sheriff in Virginia was political and part of Biden's weaponized DoJ. djt pardoned the criminal. djt said: "Sheriff Scott Jenkins, his wife Patricia, and their family have been dragged through HELL by a Corrupt and Weaponized Biden DOJ. In fact, during his trial, when Sheriff Jenkins tried to offer exculpatory evidence to support himself, the Biden Judge, Robert Ballou, refused to allow it, shut him down, and then went on a tirade."

I asked Pxy to fact check djt's characterization of the situation.

Q: How true are Trump's allegations that the trial discussed here https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/trump-pardons-virginia-sheriff-convicted-federal-bribery-charges/story?id=122206606, was partisan and flawed?

A: President Donald Trump's allegations that Scott Jenkins' trial was politically motivated and legally flawed lack substantive evidence when examined against the factual record 3 5.

1. Claim: "Biden DOJ weaponization"

Reality: The prosecution occurred under Trump’s administration. Acting U.S. Attorney Zachary T. Lee, who led the case, was appointed by Trump and remained in his role during the trial and sentencing 3. The Justice Department’s press release explicitly states Jenkins violated federal law by accepting bribes for badges, with evidence including undercover FBI recordings and financial records 3 6.

Contradiction: Trump’s claim that the Biden DOJ targeted Jenkins is factually inconsistent, as sentencing occurred in March 2025. The DoJ prosecution team consisted of Trump-era holdovers until the new administration formally took over in Jan. 2025. The lead DoJ prosecutor was a djt appointee.

2. Claim: Judge Robert Ballou blocked exculpatory evidence

Reality: While Trump accused the Biden-appointed judge of suppressing evidence, trial records show:

• The jury convicted Jenkins based on overwhelming evidence, including $75,000 in bribes, audio recordings, and testimony from FBI agents 3 6 8.

• Judges routinely exclude evidence deemed irrelevant or inadmissible under federal rules. No specific details about the excluded evidence have been disclosed to validate Trump’s unsupported assertion 5.

So there we have it. djt pardons criminal loyalists, falsely claiming the DoJ was weaponized by Biden. djt is an arrogant, insulting liar and a criminal tyrant.