WHY DO INTELLECTUALS OPPOSE CAPITALISM ?

Cato Online ^ | January/February 1998 | Robert Nozick

[Red Boots]

MY two cents: They hate capitalism like they hate all other forms of the truth. The laws of economics are based in the truth of supply and demand, and the nature of man. They are truth like the laws of gravity- they are the way the world works, they won't be changed just because a bunch of liberals think they should be. Societies that try to have always failed. Liberals and anti-capitalists are those who simply cannot face the world as it IS, not as they wish it were.

[tacticalogic]

IMHO - intellectuals feel threatened by capitalism. They deal in ideas - mostly other people's ideas, and they set themselves up as the arbiters of what is a good idea and what is a bad idea. Capitalism takes that position away from them and gives it to the unwashed masses.

[FourPeas]

The short answer is they think they're so smart that they know what's better for us than we do.

Bingo! We have a winner.

[ShadowDancer]

I'll give it a go. It is out of self-preservation. Capitalism rewards those who provide goods and/or services that others value. Intellectuals offer neither.

Completely, utterly and totally dead on.

[Gorjus]

[S}upply and demand can be understood by uneducated people.

I think the issue is the expectations of intellectuals relative to 'uneducated people'. Much of what the essay discusses has merits, but what is missing is the degree of recent intensity. What has made intellectuals so rabidly anti-capitalist now, as opposed to 50 years ago?

The professions he includes as intellectual are teacher, journalist, and politician/bureaucrat. These professions have always rewarded advanced education, because improper use of words stood out flagrantly and unacceptably in those areas. By virue of their verbal skills, the 'wordsmith' intellectuals were easily distinguishable from others in everyday life. It showed as they talked, and it showed in their comfortable ability to read (the easiest way to share information in the era before television) and so demonstrate greater knowledge of what was happening in the world. When they talked, people listened.

Yet verbal skills to an 'adequate' level are fundamental to all advanced training. Now that a large percentage of our society has college degrees, the engineer and businessman have picked up adequate verbal skills along the way to training that society values more. Yet for the engineer and businessman, verbal skills are not enough. As one crust old Navy Captain said, "You don't have to be a rocket scientist to be a social scientist, but you do have to be a rocket scientist to be a rocket scientist." In the law of supply and demand, there is now a much larger supply of those with adequate verbal skills.

As a result, the intellectual professions no longer attract the best and the brightest, and the respect society holds for those with no other claim to value is spiraling downward faster and faster. Thomas Sowell has written extensively about how teachers and journalists are among the lowest ranks of achievement in school. Being in the lowest third of a social order where only 10% of the people have college degrees is still a sign of intellectual achievement. Being in the lowest third of a social order where 70% of the people have college degrees puts you less than average in intelligence for the society as a whole.

So, they do everything they can to ruin the system that rewards specialized skills in the hope that their unspecialized skills can regain respect. What they don't recognize is that if we went back to the 'old' system where only the top 10% of the people went to college, most of today's teachers and journalists would never have made it through.

[Desecrated]

"There is not a whole lot of demand for philosophy, history, journalism, art, et cetera..."

Are you saying there is no role for these genres simply because there is no "demand" for them? Some people choose these paths because that is what brings them happiness, which is not necessarily connected to money. Just because there is no market demand for philosopers or history majors doesn't mean that they don't play an important role in a capitalist society.

[larryjohnson]

This numbersmith grew numb before completing.

[John Lenin]

Let's get this straight, intellectual is the most abused term in english language. While some so called intellectuals are wise the term intellectual and wisdom have nothing in common. I would rather be wise than be an intellectual.
Since liberals are always wrong about about everything they preach and claim to be the intellectual class that is the proof that intellectual and wisdom should not be spoken in the same sentence together.

[CatoRenasci]

This is a very good article, but it has been posted more than once before.

What are you writing about regarding Rawls. I used to do that sort of thing, even published a paper on Nozick's misreading (in Anarchy, State and Utopia) of A.K. Sen's Liberal Paradox (in Collective Choice and Social Welfare). But that was many years and a couple of careers ago.

[reflecting]

wordsmith intellectuals

There are two types of people in the world, 1) word people and 2) number people.........word people run this country..... the lawyers, the politicians, the media, the preachers, ...... verbal giftedness is rewarded with status and power....if you could look at the real SATs of all of our congressmen I am sure you would find most have higher verbal scores that math scores....quite an anomaly among a mostly male group....

Thus my conclusion is strange and bizarre events occur do to the lack of “number people” around to apply some sequential thinking skills

p.s. George Bush is a “number person” …look up his SATs….which is why the “word people” think he is dumb….

[Lonesome in Massachussets]

I think Nozick missed one key point. It is extremely circular but is valid, just the same. Some stupid, lazy elitist slobs want to be perceived as intellectuals and believe that bad-mouthing capitalism will aid that perception.

He missed it because Thorstein Veblin already said the same thing in "The Theory of the Leisure Class". It's Veblin assertion that the people assume "Leisure Class" attitudes about things like the environment, social welfare, foreign policy etc. People adopt additudes and ideas that make them feel superior to the unwashed rabble. (Jean Garofalo call your agent. Tim Robbins, Susan Sarandon, please shut up.)

[BADROTOFINGER]

WHY DO INTELLECTUALS OPPOSE CAPITALISM ?

It is quite simple. Intellectuals think that they are the greatest people on Earth. But at the end of the day, the ones who drive the nicest cars home to the nicest houses are capitalists. They feel that it is the ultimate insult that the world doesnt recognize their superiority to all of us and shower them with our hard earned riches...JFK

[livius]

Ping for later read.

[middie]

Universities are not vocational schhols. Teaching employable skills is the legitimate role of trade schools. Teaching the processes of thought, the theories and philosophies of the great thinkers of history and the skills of critical analyis are the high roles we should demand from universities and colleges. Engineers who can build a bridge but who haven't a clue as to the greatness of poetry, literature, the who, why and effect of history, or who have no appreciation of the great philosophers from ancient Greece to the industrial revolution and beyond are nothing more than automotons and skilled workers.

Higher education should challenge the young (and older) mind to grow both in learning, but more important, in wisdom and the means by which to reach that high plane.

[Cosmo]

Just writing on of Cohen's ( see "If you're in egalitarian, how come you're so rich")criticisms of Rawls and the way his argument actually serves to bolster the conservative /libertarian argument against Rawls and egalitarians in general....Not totally original, admittedly, but it's late in the semester and I'm beat.:)

If you want to point me in the direction of your paper, I'd love to read it.

as for this article having been posted before, I figure some articles are timeless enough that they deserve reposting from time-to time (People seem to be enjoying it,here:))

Anyhoo

Feel the gin

[jimkress]

contemporary intellectuals feel entitled to the highest rewards their society has to offer and resentful when they do not receive this? Intellectuals feel they are the most valuable people, the ones with the highest merit, and that society should reward people in accordance with their value and merit.

A concise definition of the genesis of Bill and Hillary Clinton's attitude toward their position in America and why Americans should approach them on bended knee.

[dark_lord]

As a result, the intellectual professions no longer attract the best and the brightest, and the respect society holds for those with no other claim to value is spiraling downward faster and faster. Thomas Sowell has written extensively about how teachers and journalists are among the lowest ranks of achievement in school. Being in the lowest third of a social order where only 10% of the people have college degrees is still a sign of intellectual achievement. Being in the lowest third of a social order where 70% of the people have college degrees puts you less than average in intelligence for the society as a whole.

Bingo.

To add to that -- 50 years ago most women could only find "good" jobs as nurses or teachers. Lots of smart, competent women became teachers. One reason why it was possible to educate kids well back then was because the teachers were generally quite competent. Once the women could get other jobs, the "best and brightest" fled teaching for other professions and the teaching field became the realm of a few struggling folks who really want to help kids amidst a sea of incompetent hacks. It is a simple fact that of all occupations, teachers today (with a few exceptions) are at the low end of the IQ pool.

[Lil'freeper]

Completely, utterly and totally dead on.

High praise- thanks.

[Skywalk]

Thank you!

I've been stunned by a few of the posts on this thread. When they spit on intellectuals, they also spit on the same type of people that "discovered" or developed the ideas that they cherish--from theologian intellectuals like Aquinas to the fathers of capitalist/libertarian schools of thought like Locke, Burke, von Mises and Hayek.

Maybe we should all make a distinction between the pseudo-intellectual deGenovas of the world and true intellectuals that we may or MAY NOT agree with like a Rawls or Sowell or Williams.

There is a place for thoughts and ideas, and I believe this piece is right on, but rather than bash anyone who is intelligent or orients their lives around the great words, ideas, arts, etc of human history, perhaps we should criticize those that simply carry resenmtment or deem themselves "the Anointed." That way we can still love and admire our Sowells and Rothbards and make distinctions between good and bad, as we always must.

[gcruse]

  I think the author is out to lunch.  His idea of intellectual is pointed moreso at pundits and writers.
I disagree with his premise that the place to find intellectuals is primarily there.  Real captains
of industry don't get where they are by being dull witted, and they are not anti-capitalist.  I disagree with his entire article.

As to why intellectuals are often anti-capitalist, I would redefine the subject and ask
why the highly educated are often anti-capitalist, with the higher the education, the
more pointed the anti-capitalism.  And it doesn't have to do necessarily with exposure
to Marxist economics, though that surely has an effect on those so exposed in their
educational pursuit.

Education is tightly bound with gaining understanding.  And there is much truth in the
axiom, "To understand all is to forgive all."  In Germany, there was great criticism of
a book that purported to find explanations for why Hitler acted as he did, in other
words to understand his motivations.  Critics felt that if the reader could be persuaded
to understand why Hitler did what he did, he could see enough of the same characteristics
in himself to accomodate a degree of cutting Adolf some slack.

Higher education in the US, especially in the social sciences, finds motivations for the black
community's ingrained disrespect for hard work and education in studies of slavery, for example.
By thus blaming historical forces for the poverty that results from the street mindset, it is but a small
stop to blaming society, and decreeing redistribution of wealth and all the other socialistic 'remedies'
that come to hand.  "To understand all, is to forgive all," and to see capitalism as being too demanding an economic system of those who  "understandably" won't get off their butts to
pull the wagon, cannot compete, and it's "unfair" to expect them to do any better.