The Egalitarian Menace | Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr.

our final speaker this afternoon is Lew Rockwell who most of you I'm sure know as not only the founder and chairman of the Mises Institute but also the proprietor of Lew Rockwell calm knowing and working for Ron Paul over the years I've had so many people say to me that Ron Paul is what brought them to libertarianism Ron Paul's what woke them up well I would argue that Lew Rockwell through his efforts at the Mises Institute in Wroclaw calm is what keeps them in libertarianism by providing just an unbelievable amount of content and education and knowledge every day of his life one of the hardest-working guys I know please welcome Lew Rockwell thank you a sharp Martian visiting the earth might make two observations one true the other only superficially so how about the United States on the basis of its ceaseless exercises and self-congratulation the u.s. appears to be a place where free thought is encouraged and which man makes war against all the fetters on his mind the reactionary forces had once placed there that's the superficial truth the real truth which our Martian would discover after watching how Americans actually behaved through the range of opinions that citizens may entertain is rather more narrow than it first appears there are he will soon discover certain ideas and positions that all Americans are supposed to believe in and salute at 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 neither another opportunity to marvel at a miracle of the market its ability to incorporate just about anyone into the division of labor need the division of labor is based on human difference each of us finds the niche that suits our talents best and specializes in that particular thing we can most effectively serve our solo man our fellow man by doing our fellow man likewise specializes and what he is best suited for and we in turn benefit from the fruits of his specialized knowledge and skill and according to Ricardo's law of a comparative advantage which Mises generalizing to the law of Association even if one person is better than another at absolutely everything the less able person is still able to flourish in a free market for instance even if the greatest most long preneur you can think of is a better office cleaner than anyone else in town and is likewise a better secretary and all the secretaries in town it would make no sense for him to clean his own office or type and file all his own correspondence his time is so much better spent in the market niche in which he excels that it would be preposterous for him to waste his time doing these things in fact anyone looking to hire him to do the office cleaning would have to pay millions of dollars to draw him away from the extremely remunerative work he is otherwise doing so even an average office cleaner is vastly more competitive in the office cleaning market than our fictional entrepreneur since the average office cleaner can charge say 15 dollars an hour instead of the $15,000 an hour our entrepreneur mindful of opportunity cost would have to charge so there was a place for everyone in the market economy and what's more since the market economy rewards those who are able to produce goods at affordable prices for a mass market it is precisely the average person to whom the captains of industry are all but forced to cater this is an arrangement to celebrate of course not to deplore this is not how the egalitarian see it of course an hour I turned to the works of that great anti-gay latarian Murray and rothbard Murray dealt with the subject of equality in part in his great essay freedom inequality primitivism and the division of labor but really took it on head-to-head in a Galit arianism as a revolt against nature what services the title chapter of his wonderful book that's I'm sure we've still got some copies outside available of that it's from Murray than my own comments today take their inspiration the current devotion to equality is not of ancient provenance as Murray pointed out he said the current veneration of equality is indeed a very recent notion in the history of human thought among philosophers or prominent thinkers the idea scarcely existed before the mid 18th century it was mentioned if only as object at all only if only is the object of horror or ridicule the profoundly anti human and violently coercive nature of egalitarian ism it was made clear in the influential classical myth of per Krusty's who forced passing travelers to lie in an iron bed and if they were to long for the bed he lopped off those parts of their bodies which protruded while he racked out the legs of anyone who was too short what are we done Durst and by the word equality the answer is we don't really know his proponents make precious little effort to disclose to us precisely what they have in mind all we know is that we better believe in it and it is precisely this lack of clarity that makes the idea of equality such an advantage for the state knoweth and is entirely sure but the principle of equality commits him to in keeping up with ever-changing demands is more difficult still what were two previously different things yesterday can become precisely equal today and you'd better believe that they are equal if you don't want your reputation destroyed or your career ruined this was the heart of the celebrated dispute between neoconservative Harry Jaffa and paleo conservative Emmy Bradford carried out in the pages of modern age in the 1970s equality Mel Bradford argued as a concept that cannot be and will not be restrained or nailed down you mean he tried to make Jeff understand that equality with a capital e was a recipe for permanent revolution not a problem for jaffa who of course came as has been pointed out earlier today from the neoconservative Trotsky a tradition now to a gallop do a caledonians mean we are committed to the proposition that anyone is potentially an astrophysicist so long as he is raised in the proper environment maybe maybe not some of them certainly do believe such a thing in 1930 in the encyclopedia of the social sciences acclaimed quoted Birth human infants regardless of their heredity are as equal as Ford's livery one amis is by contrast held that quote the that men are born unequal in regard to physical and mental capabilities cannot be argued away some surpassed their fellow men and health and vigor in brain and aptitudes and energy and resolution under therefore better fitted for the pursuit of earthly Affairs than the rest of mankind did Mises just commit a hate crime by the standards of the egalitarians again we we don't really know then there's so called equality of opportunity but even this common conservative slogan is fraught with problems the obvious retort is that in order to have true equality of opportunity sweeping government intervention is necessary for how can someone in a poor household with indifferent parents seriously be said to have equality of opportunity with children of well-to-do parents deeply engaged in their lives then there is equality in a cultural sense whereby everyone is expected to ratify everyone else's personal choices cultural egalitarians don't really mean that of course none of them demand that people who dislike Christianity sit down and learn theistic theology scholastic theology in order to discover something important but the Christians believe and here we discover something important also about the whole egalitarian program it's not really about equality it's about some people exercising power over others at the University of Tennessee this fall the office for diversity and inclusion explained that traditional English crown on pronouns are oppressive to people who do not identify with the gender they were quote assigned at Birth and so ought to be replaced with something new the diversity office recommends his replacements for she/her/hers he/him/his the following G here hers here's Z sir sirs z z-- m and z r when approaching people the first time students were told we should say something lice like nice to meet you what pronouns should i use so when the whole world burst out laughing at this proposal the university was at pains to assure everyone of these of course were just suggestions are we right again because we're not as suggestions of the thought that all right-thinking people are expected to have about moral questions that have been decided for us by our media and political elites another aspect of equality that's been in the news in recent years is of course income inequality we're told how terrible it is that some people should have so much more than others but rarely if ever how we told how much of any extra wealth the egalitarian society would allow the better off to have or the non-arbitrary basis on which such a judgment could be rendered John Rawls was possibly the most influential political philosopher of the twentieth century a terrible century and he advanced the famous defense of a Galit arianism in his book a theory of justice he attempted to answer this question among others if I may summarize his argument in brief he claimed we would all choose an egalitarian society if as we contemplated the values of society the ones that we'd want to live under we had no idea what our own position in that society would be we didn't know if we were to be male or female rich or poor talented or untalented or we would hedge our bets by advocating a society in which everyone was as equal as possible that way should be at we'd be unlucky and enter the world without talents or as a member of a despised minority or saddled any other disability we could still be as short of a comfortable if not luxurious existence Rawls was willing to allow some degree of inequality but only if its effect was to help the poor in other words doctors could be allowed to earn more money than other people if that financial incentive made them more likely to become doctors in the first place if incomes are equalized people would be less likely to go to the trouble of becoming a doctor and the poor would be deprived of medical care so inequality could be allowed but only an egalitarian grands not because people have the right to acquire and enjoy property without fear of expropriation since no one in his right mind accepts full-blown egalitarianism Rawls was bound to run into trouble the trouble came in the form of attempts to deal with equality between countries even the most dedicated egalitarian living in the first world doesn't want equality equal ization of wealth between countries college professors who teach the moral superiority of a Galit arianism during the day want their fine wine and cheese parties in their beautiful homes at night so Rawls came up with a strained and unpersuasive argument but a low inequality between persons was outrageous and could be justified only in the basis of whether it helped the poorest inequality between countries was quite alright he then proceeded to give reasons even though these were the exact reasons he accepted inequality between individuals was unacceptable even if a Gallic arianism could be defended philosophically there is the small matter of implementing it in the real world just one reason the egalitarian dream cannot be realized involves what Robert knows it called the Wilt Chamberlain problem James Addison is called as something like the date to problem in Chamberlain's did heyday everyone enjoyed watching him play basketball people gladly paid to watch him play but suppose we gave with an equal distribution of wealth and then everyone rushes out to watch Chamberlain many thousands of people would willingly hand over a portion of their money to him to watch and play basketball and he now becomes much wealthier than everyone else in other words the pattern of wealth distribution is disturbed as soon as anyone engages in exchange at all are we to cancel the results of these exchanges and return everyone's money to the original owners is Chamberlain to be deprived of the money people freely chose to give him in exchange for the entertainment he provided the reason the state holds up equality is a moral ideal is precisely that it is unattainable we may forever strive for it but we can never reach it what ideologies can be better from the state's point of view the state can portray itself as the indispensable agent of justice while at the same time drawing ever more power and resources to itself over education employment wealth redistribution and practically any area of social life or the economy you can name in the course of pursuing an unattainable gala carrion program quote equality cannot be imagined outside of tyranny Mattel and bear said it was he said nothing but the canonization of Envy it was never anything but a mask which could become reality which could not become reality without the abolition of all merit and virtue the course of working towards equality the state expands its power at the expense of other forms of human association including the family itself the family has always been the primary obstacle to the egalitarian program the very fact that parents differ in their knowledge skill levels and devotion to their offspring means the children and no two households can never be raised equally Robert Nisbet the Columbia University sociologist hopefully wondered if Rawls could be honest enough to admit that his system if followed to its logical conclusion had to lead to the abolition of the family quote said Nisbet I have always found treatment of the family to be an excellent indicator of the degree of zeal and authoritarianism / or latent in a moral philosopher or political theorist this besaid he identified two traditions of thought in Western history one he traced from Plato to Rousseau that identified the family as a wicked barrier to the real a true virtue and justice the other which he which viewed the family as a central ingredient in both liberty and order he followed from Aristotle through Burke and Tocqueville Rawls himself appeared to admit the logic of this argument that him the logic of his argument in the direction of the Plato Rousseau's train of thought though he ultimately and unpersuasive Lee drew back hero Rawls's own words it seems that when fair opportunity that as as it has been defined is satisfied the family will lead to unequal chances between individuals is the family to be abolished then taken by itself and given a certain premise II the idea of equal opportunity and Cline's in this direction but within the context of the theory of justice as a whole there is much less urgency to take this course this particular comfort and Rawls's pathetic assurances ken Rawls he wondered long neglect the family given its demonstrated relation to him in equality Rousseau was bold and constant enough where Rawls is diffident if the younger to be brought up in the bosom of equality quote early accustomed to regard their own individual individuality only in relation to the body of the state to be aware so to speak of their own existence merely as part of that of the state unquote then they must be safe when Rousseau refers to us quote the intelligence and prejudices of fathers the obsession with equality in in short undermines every indication of health we might look for in a civilization it involves madness to complete so complete that although it flirts with the destruction of the family it never stops to consider whether this conclusion might mean the whole line of thought may have been deranged to begin with it leads to the destruction of standards scholarly cultural and behavioral it is based on the asan assertion rather than evidence and it attempts to gain ground not the rational argument but by intimidating opponents in silence there is nothing honorable or admirable about any aspect of the Galit Aryan program Marie noted that pointing out the lunacy of egalitarianism was a good start but not nearly enough we need to show that the so-called struggle for equality is in fact all about state power not helping the downtrodden he wrote to mount an effective response to the reigning of Galit arianism of our age therefore it is necessary but scarcely sufficient to demonstrate its absurdity the anti scientific nature the self contradictory nature of the Eulerian doctrine as well as the disastrous consequences of the egalitarian program all this is well and good but misses the essential nation 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 moulding class in society the rule cannot be the lodged dislodged into the oppressed public instinctively but inchoate lee opposed to these elites are shown the true nature of the increasingly hated forces who are ruling over them to use the paraphrase to use the phrases of the new left Marie said of the late 1960s the ruling elite must be demystified the legitimize and desanctified nothing can advance that de sanctification more than the public realization of the true nature of their gala terian slogans the only Roth party and word missing from that stirring conclusion is one of Marie's favorite deep 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 and the economics of the Austrian school and reaching out to the public to give them a free education worth fastly more than what many people spend six figures on but put it all together and it amounts to perhaps the greatest D bamboozling effort of all time once you understand the economics of the Austrian school and the philosophy of Liberty and 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 out our great D been boozing mission as we devise more and more programs and outreach to the public and provide a new generation a brilliant young scholars with the tools they need to resist and defy a regime that would intimidate into silence their way is violence envy and destruction our way is peace liberty and creation with your help we can tear down the state's benign facade which has bamboozled so many for so long and reveal the all to see that the only winner in the states Crusades is the state itself thank you

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Keywords: Llewellyn Rockwell (Author), Egalitarianism (Literature Subject), Egalitarian, PC, Politics, Censorship (Quotation Subject), Ludwig Von Mises Institute (Organization), Politically Correct, Menace, Freedom, Property, Peace, Liberty, Murray Rothbard (Author)

Id: -rPFmCD---Y

Length: 21min 18sec (1278 seconds)

Published: Thu Oct 08 2015