Paul Waldman on progressive antipathy to the health-care compromise:
There is a classic economics experiment called the “ultimatum game”, which demonstrates how our decision-making process isn’t solely determined by rational calculations. In the experiment, one subject is usually given a small sum of money and told to divide it however he wants between himself and another subject. If the second subject accepts his offer, they both keep the cash. But if the second subject rejects the offer, neither of them gets anything. Rationality suggests that the second subject should accept any offer, since even one dollar is better than nothing. But in practice, offers that are perceived as unfair (like 80-20) get rejected most of the time, while offers near a 50-50 split tend to be accepted.
Our perception of fairness is so finely tuned that even in the context of an experiment, where nothing more than a few dollars are at stake, we will give up a potential gain — in order to punish a person who has acted unjustly, or simply to make a statement about the standard of behavior we think ought to be upheld — if we believe we have not been treated fairly.
Now take that idea out of the experimental context, put it in the real world, and up the ante. Here, you have worked, and advocated, and felt passion and anger and hope for a certain outcome, and you’re being asked to accept a result that’s not just unfair, but one that undermines all that you want to believe about your own identity and sense of agency.
That’s the situation many liberal activists are now confronting.