I have written over and over about how liberalism, and all authoritarian philosophies, were predicated upon two premises. First that most people are incompetent. They may be stupid, or evil, or maybe just easily misled, but they are, in some form or another, incapable of managing their own affairs. Second, though this point is often glossed over, there exists an elite that should be entrusted with governing, to protect the incompetent masses form themselves.

What I have not mentioned, and an important factor in the appeal of liberalism, is the way that that second premise enhances the appeal of liberalism. While it is true that the existence of an elite is often glossed over, it is not the whole story. It is the WAY in which it is glossed over that is important, and a big part of its appeal.

An explicit statement of liberalism's premises would be a very hard sell. There is little chance for an appeal such as this: "You are not in a position to know whether you are being paid a fair wage. However, being smarter than you, I am. So you should let me decide." If a man claims to be smarter than you, odds are good you will resent his arrogance. And so liberalism does not come right out and state that they are smarter than you.

Instead, the liberal pitch is very cleverly stated in such a way that it makes the listener feel HE is one of the elect. We can hear this in the Obama statement that "those people" cling to guns and G-d, or Murtha's claims that he was describing other people as rednecks, not his listeners. That is the standard manner in which liberals now present their arguments. "Those people" are always too incompetent to plan for retirement, or buy health insurance, or hold out for a "living wage", with the implication being that the listener is one of the elect who will guide these benighted souls to utopia.

And that is what makes modern liberalism so absurd. With about half the nation supporting the Democrats, it means that a significant minority of the population now feels they can manage their own affairs but somehow a "vast majority" of Americans cannot. In other words, 40% or more of our population now thinks they are part of a small elite.

Then again, this is nothing new. It reminds me of those polls conducted by news agencies during the Bush administration, which found that 75% or more of those polled thought their own finances were in good shape, but simultaneously felt the economy "as a whole" was in bad shape. Here we see the corresponding political philosophy. A large majority think they are competent to manage their own affairs, but simultaneously think "most people" are not.

Actually, in some ways this reinforces von Mises' observation that socialism is nothing but the expression of petty resentments. Whenever anyone thinks of his ideal liberal policy, when he thinks of the government "fixing" things, he imagines that they will "fixed' in the specific way he would do it. In other words, each liberal has a different utopia based on his own prejudices. We are not talking about some shared ideal that all of these liberals hold dear, instead we are talking of a great mass of people each imagining himself as dictator forcing his own prejudices on everyone else. Which is why so few are truly satisfied once their pet policies are enacted. When they find their own prejudices will not rule everything, they often find themselves less than delighted with the specifics of the system they once advocated. Which is why, in practice, the more authoritarian a system becomes, the more prone it is to break down into factional squabbling.

But that is far in the future for our liberals of today. Right now they are still caught up in their dreams of enforcing their own biases on everyone else. And so it is easy for those promoting greater government control to convince them that they are all part of the eventual ruling elite. And strangely, not one notices that the speaker is addressing audiences of thousands, even millions, promising each that it is "those other people" who are the problem. No one asks, if a nationwide speech ascribes a problem to "other people", who are they? Instead they all just nod and accept the compliment and go back to dreaming about the day when they can eliminate all leaf blowers or ban wide ties or flog any man who calls women "babe", where their worthless brother in law won't earn more than they do, or where those "good for nothing bankers" won't be paid too much for doing nothing, or where teachers will earn more than athletes, and whatever other injustices that trouble them will all be corrected. And that brings enough of a smile to let them ignore the obvious inconsistencies.

POSTSCRIPT

Rather than litter this with links, I would just send readers interested in my earlier writing on liberalism and arrogance to the articles listed in the postscript to "Apology as Arrogance" as well as the articles "When Help Hurts ", "My Vision of Government ", "My Vision of Government Part II ", "A Question of Perception", "An Analogy For Government", "Exploited Labor", "Planning For Imperfection" and "The Intellectual Elite". There are also some relevant links in the postscript to "Revisiting Gay Marriage".