Why so many intellectuals fall for socialism every time
Ever wonder why intellectuals fall for socialism? Because they’d rather rule a disaster than admit the free market works better without them.
There’s a strange phenomenon that’s repeated itself over the last 150 years over and over and over again. The more degrees someone collects, the more likely they are to champion central planning. And not just with quiet optimism, but with full-throated moral certainty.
You’ve probably heard it:
- “We just need the right experts in charge.”
- “Markets don’t work for the greater good.”
- “If only government had more power, we could fix this.”
Why is it always the “smart” ones who fall for this stuff?
The academic illusion
Most modern intellectuals live in bubbles, like classrooms, universities, think tanks, and editorial boards, where theory outweighs experience. They don’t build businesses, serve customers, balance risk, or manage payroll.
These cats write papers, get tenure, and talk to other people who agree with them. Their “solutions” exist in a vacuum, detached from feedback, cost, or consequence. So it’s no wonder they love central planning. It rewards abstract ideas over messy reality.
And when their policies fail?
They blame the people, capitalism, or not enough funding.
Central planning is a god complex for the intellectually arrogant
Socialism and central planning are seductive because they flatter the planner. The intellectual gets to play God when they organize society, allocate resources, and decide who wins and who loses. It’s control disguised as compassion.
But here’s the problem: The world is too complex to be controlled, and it’s been proven right so many times.
Prices, innovation, supply chains, and human needs all shift constantly. No single brain, committee, or institution can keep up. Markets, voluntary cooperation, and freedom can and will. But those don’t make the intellectual feel important, so they’re dismissed.
History’s graveyard of ideas
You’d think going on two centuries of bloodshed, bread lines, and bureaucracy would be enough to kill the fetish for control, yet here we are.
The Soviet Union collapsed, Mao’s Great Leap starved millions, Venezuela imploded, and North Korea (barely) survives by force alone.
Still, the intelligentsia insists: That wasn’t real socialism. Or worse: We just need smarter planners next time. It’s the same arrogance every time, and it gets people killed.
The libertarian truth bomb
Libertarianism doesn’t pretend to solve every problem. It doesn’t promise utopia. Instead, it simply says this, No one is wise or moral enough to control others by force.
Freedom is messy, but it’s honest. It respects human dignity and allows for failure, experimentation, and growth. That’s something socialism, with all its rigid plans and delusions of control, can never offer.
Want to check out a failed socialist state in action? Then you definitely need to check out my post-apocalyptic dystopian military fantasy trilogy Sentrys of Terrene. And yes, that’s Sentrys, not Sentries.
In it, young Sabre Kjaergaard spent almost her entire life living in a so-called socialist utopia. Until she sees through the cracks and realizes it’s darker, danker, and more disturbing than she could’ve ever imagined.
===> Get Book I, The Rebellion Awakens, and enter Sabre’s world <===
