Since it is precisely a molding of opinion that the State most desperately needs, the basis for age-old alliance between the State and the intellectuals becomes clear. It is evident that the State needs the intellectuals; it is not so evident why intellectuals need the State. Put simply, we may state that the intellectual's livelihood in the free market is never too secure; for the intellectual must depend on the values and choices of the masses of his fellow men, and it is precisely characteristic of the masses that they are generally uninterested in intellectual matters. The State, on the other hand, is willing to offer the intellectuals a secure and permanent berth in the State apparatus; and thus a secure income and the panoply of prestige. For the intellectuals will be handsomely rewarded for the important function they perform for the State rulers, of which group they now become a part. - Murray N. Rothbard, The Anatomy of the State
Arguments used by state intellectuals:
- the state rulers are great and wise - divine right, scientific experts
- rule by the extent government is inevitable, absolutely necessary
- instill fear - criminality, terrorists, immorality, foreign invasion
- identify the state with the territory it rules - exploit natural love of community and homeland
- tradition - use longevity of rule to justify more rule, inevitable "social forces"
- deprecate the individual and exalt the collectivity of society
- induce guilt - service to state rather than "selfish greed"
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Rothbard was particularly concerned with the state's use of war to increase its power. He saw that taxes, conscription, regulation, and the ranks of people employed by, or otherwise dependent on the state increased during wartime (and other crises), and once the crisis was over, rarely if ever diminished to pre-crisis levels. This is what Robert Higgs called "the ratchet effect" in his masterful book Crisis and Leviathan.
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