Another potent ideological force is to deprecate the individual and exalt the collectivity of society. For since any given rule implies majority acceptance, any ideological danger to that rule can only start from one or a few independently-thinking individuals. The new idea, much less the new critical idea, must needs begin as a small minority opinion; therefore, the State must nip the view in the bud by ridiculing any view that defies the opinions of the mass. Listen only to your brothers or adjust to society thus become ideological weapons for crushing individual dissent. By such measures, the masses will never learn of the nonexistence of their Emperors clothes.

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About Murray N. Rothbard

Murray N. Rothbard was a 20th-century American economist. Murray Newton Rothbard was an American economist of the Austrian School, economic historian, political theorist, and activist. Rothbard was a central figure in the 20th-century American libertarian movement, particularly its right-wing strands, and was a founder and leading theoretician of anarcho-capitalism. Read more on Wikipedia →

Themes

  • Politics — Governance, civic duty, and the structures of power

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