… is from pages 127-128 of Thomas Sowell’s 2023 book, Social Justice Fallacies:
Intellectual elites may imagine that they have all the consequential knowledge required to create the social justice world they seek, despite considerable evidence to the contrary. But, even if they were somehow able to handle the knowledge problem, there still remains the problem of having enough power to do all that would need to be done. That is not just a problem for intellectual elites. It is an even bigger problem – and danger – for the people who might give them that power.
DBx: Yes.
Almost no one would allow his or her neighbors – even though these are people who are personally known and considered to be friends – confiscate large chunks of his or her wealth and liberties. Yet very many people think nothing of allowing strangers who excel at winning elections confiscate large chunks of their wealth and liberties. Very many people really do believe that being invested with government power, especially if that investiture is done democratically, transforms ordinary humans into superhumans.
Strange belief, that. For humanity’s sake, hopefully one day this superstition will be dispensed with in the same manner as we’ve dispensed with superstitious beliefs in witches, ghosts, and phrenology.
