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There were a lot of good comments on yesterday\u2019s conflict vs. mistake post. Some were very appropriate challenges: for example, doesn\u2019t public choice theory itself assume conflict between special interests? And didn\u2019t Marxism start off with a dry incentive-based explanation for why capitalists have to do what they do and how the incentive landscape needs to change? I want to explore these questions further \u2013 but first, some data from\xa0the SSC survey\xa0showing that the distinction does capture something real and important.

No questions really matched the conflict/mistake theory distinction, but one of the closest was POLITICAL DISAGREEMENT I: \u201cWhich of these plays a bigger role in explaining why some people are wrong about politics \u2013 intellectual failure, or moral failure?\u201d This isn\u2019t quite the way I would frame it now \u2013 but it\u2019ll do for our purposes.