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Notes -
It does seem relevant that progressives are in favor of downward redistribution though. "The market needs to set wages based on scarce traits like intelligence, but the unintelligent should still get healthcare, free college, public housing, and childcare subsidized by redistribution from the intelligent" might imply a different moral judgement of the unintelligent than 'the unintelligent should be at the bottom and get nothing but their market wages".
I don't think I would categorize that as a "progressive" position though, that just seems like classic liberalism. Maybe with a wider reach, and an ignorance of economic incentives. But I'm not opposed to the general idea of redistribution. But the progressive position is usually that the market does not need to set wages based on scarce traits, a "wage gap" between groups is evidence of discrimination and needs to be fixed at the source. Rich people should give their money to poor people not because they are more capable and competent and thus should subsidize the less able, but because their wealth was stolen in the first place by discriminatory institutions and exploitation of the disadvantaged. The advocated policies are similar, but the justifications, and the extent of them, are very different.
Maybe I'm setting up too weak of a straw man to knock down. Obviously there are more and less extreme people along the way. But if you find someone claiming "minorities need social support because they're less capable than whites" they are going to be tarred and feathered in progressive circles as an evil Nazi, not held up as an orthodox progressive who says what they're all thinking.
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