There is a better market for collectivist intellectualism than there is for free enterprise individualism.

Milton Friedman observations in The Intellectuals and Collectivism by John Phelan. Over decades and across countries and cultures, it always seems as if intellectuals back centralized power which robs individuals of their freedom and liberty. Why?

I have never come up with a satisfactory answer. Thomas Sowell, of course, has some trenchant explanations in Intellectuals and Society. I have read lots of explanations. Most of them seem substantially correct but they still feel incomplete.

The disconnect between what we expect from public intellectuals and their actual beliefs is too large to be easily comprehended.

Friedman has a shot. Read the whole thing.

After some initial observations, Friedman notes:

Schumpeter gave one answer. He said that a free enterprise society, by its success, creates a large number of intellectuals who, by their nature, feel they don’t have the power they are entitled to. They become frustrated and repressed, and thus dissatisfied with the existing system. I think there is a good deal of truth to that. But, of course, that doesn’t argue that intellectuals are collectivists. It only argues that they would be against the status quo; that they would be free enterprisers in a collectivist world and collectivists in a free enterprise world.

However, that’s hard to observe because the potential free enterprisers in a collectivist world wouldn’t be permitted to talk. The only place we’d hear the intellectuals speaking freely would be in a free enterprise society. I haven’t seen any public announcement of the formation of a Russians for Capitalist Action. You don’t have a capitalist party in the Soviet Union, but there is a Communist Party here.

If you ask why so many intellectuals are collectivists, I think the fundamental reason is very different. I think it’s in their own self-interest, in a double way. First, in a collectivist society, intellectuals have more power than they do in a free enterprise system. In the 1930s, the New Deal created an enormous number of jobs that didn’t exist before for intellectuals. I had one myself, so I am speaking from personal experience. There has been a “drang nach Washington” since the New Deal which intellectuals everywhere recognize as having improved their personal status. Second, it is much easier to sell simple-minded, collectivist ideas than it is to sell sophisticated, free enterprise ideas. Take our topic—social responsibility. Why does this nonsense fill the air? Because it is simple-minded and easy to sell. Because listeners don’t have to go through a complicated thinking process.

Trying to sell people on the idea that although there are things that are wrong, if you try to make them better, you’ll make them worse, is a lot harder than selling them the idea that the way to solve a problem is to elect a good man and have the government do something. Consequently, there is a better market for collectivist intellectualism than there is for free enterprise individualism.

There is an intellectual consistency here. For Friedman, the explanation for public intellectuals being so enamored with policy stupidity is simply a matter of market dynamics. "There is a better market for collectivist intellectualism than there is for free enterprise individualism." Probably correct, but still a somewhat unsatisfactory explanation of the phenomenon.