Against Egalitarianism

This talk was delivered at the Ft. Worth Mises Circle, “Against PC,” on October 3, 2015.

A sharp Martian visiting Earth would make two observations about the United States–one true, the other only superficially so. On the basis of its ceaseless exercises in self-congratulation, the US appears to him to be a place where free thought is encouraged, and in which man makes war against all the fetters on his mind that reactionary forces had once placed there. That is the superficial truth.

The real truth, which our Martian would discover after watching how Americans actually behave, is that the range of opinions that citizens may entertain is rather more narrow than it at first appears. There are, he will soon discover, certain ideas and positions all Americans are supposed to believe in and salute. Near the top of the list is equality, an idea for which we are never given a precise definition, but to which everyone is expected to genuflect.

A libertarian is perfectly at peace with the universal phenomenon of human difference. He does not wish it away, he does not shake his fist at it, he does not pretend not to notice it. It affords him another opportunity to marvel at a miracle of the market: its ability to incorporate just about anyone into the division of labor. egalitarian doctrine, as well as the disastrous consequences of the egalitarian program. All this is well and good. But it misses the essential nature of, as well as the most effective rebuttal to, the egalitarian program: to expose it as a mask for the drive to power of the now ruling left-liberal intellectual and media elites. Since these elites are also the hitherto unchallenged opinion-molding class in society, their rule cannot be dislodged until the oppressed public, instinctively but inchoately opposed to these elites, are shown the true nature of the increasingly hated forces who are ruling over them. To use the phrases of the New Left of the late 1960s, the ruling elite must be “demystified,” “delegitimated,” and “desanctified.” Nothing can advance their desanctification more than the public realization of the true nature of their egalitarian slogans.

The only Rothbardian word missing from that stirring conclusion is one of Murray’s favorites: “de-bamboozle.” It is that, above all, that needs to be done. The Mises Institute has accomplished many things over the years: advancing scholarship through our academic conferences and scholarly journals, educating students in the economics of the Austrian School, and reaching out to the public to give them a free education worth vastly more than what many people spend six figures for. But put it all together, and it amounts to perhaps the greatest de-bamboozling effort of all time. Once you understand the economics of the Austrian School and the philosophy of liberty in the tradition of Rothbard, you never look at anything – not the state, the media, the central bank, the political class, nothing – the same way again.

Help us carry on our great de-bamboozling mission, as we devise more and more programs and outreach to the public, and provide a new generation of brilliant young scholars with the tools they need to resist and defy a regime that would intimidate us into silence. Their way is violence, envy, and destruction. Ours is peace, liberty, and creation. With your help, we can tear down the state’s benign facade, which has bamboozled so many, and reveal for all to see that the only winner in the state’s crusades is the state itself.