Below is a version of Donald J. Boudreaux's response to a NY Times book review that I modified to reflect my personal view on progressive elitism and authoritarianism. It differs slightly from the original authored by Mr. Boudreaux, but he articulates it very well.
A popular theme among progressives is that they, in contrast to their mindless Cro-Magnon opposites, overflow with ideas. Progressives see their theories and insights as highly intellectual and enlightened.
But these ideas are almost exclusively about how other people should live their lives. These are ideas about how one group of people (the politically successful) should engineer everyone else’s contracts, social relations, diets, habits, and even moral sentiments.
Put differently, modern progressive ideas are about replacing an unimaginably large multitude of diverse and competing ideas – each one individually chosen, practiced, assessed, and modified in light of what F.A. Hayek called “the particular circumstances of time and place” – with a relatively paltry set of ‘Big Ideas’ that are politically selected, centrally imposed, and enforced not by the natural give, take, and compromise of the everyday interactions of millions of people but, rather, by the simple notion that those with the power of government are anointed to lord over the rest of us.
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