Friday, August 2, 2013

A Natural Elite?

 

Are some people just naturally superior in quantifiable ways? We know some are naturally intelligent, some are naturally dominant, some are naturally driven, it stands to reason that some are naturally all three. Thinking for a moment, I can come up with examples of extremely intelligent peope who never acheived influence in relation to their abilities. Tesla is an obvious example, while he was undeniably a genius inventor, he never acheived financial success even with the backing of Westinghouse while Thomas Edison became a billionaire.  Or dominant people who never acheive influence outside of their small personal sphere; athletes are aggressive men who spend their lives in competition, but rarely acheive success outside their sport. Politicians are generally somewhat intelligent (Biden and Quayle are debatable) and driven with plenty of charisma, they would seem to be obvious elites, but the evidence would suggest that they are beholden to a higher level of influence. Is that higher level of influence made up of people who are intelligent, charismatic and driven beyond the norm?

A comment by jwoop66 at guerrillamerica got me thinking about this:

“Jefferson, Hancock, Franklin, Washington et al. were “elites”. Lawyers and landowners. God bless ‘em, however, but they and their peers were elites. When they felt oppressed, things happened. When “our” elites feel the pain, THEN the revolution will begin. While it is just us bitching at ourselves on the internet and then waking up to our Hourly or salary jobs, there will be no change.”

jwoop66 got me wondering if there are any pro-liberty elites today and ,if so, who they might be. I then considered if it was just lucky for us that the elites of that time decided on a decentralised government purely because it aligned with their own best interests. Consider history is the stories of a relatively few powerful people competing against each other. If enough American founders had wanted to install a monarchy (as some did) they could have. They had the power.
From mises.org:

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