The fading of the critical sense is a serious menace to the
preservation of our civilization. It makes it easy for quacks
to fool the people. I t is remarkable that the educated strata
are more gullible than the less educated.
The most enthusiastic supporters of Marxism, Nazism, and Fascism were the intellectuals, not the boors. The intellectuals were never
keen enough to see the manifest contradictions of their
creeds. It did not in the least impair the popularity of Fas cism that Mussolini in the same speech praised the Italians
as the representatives of the oldest Western civilization and
as the youngest among the civilized nations
No German nationalist minded it when dark-haired Hitler, corpulent
Goering, and lame Goebbels were praised as the shining
representatives of the tall, slim, fair-haired, heroic Aryan
master race.
Is it not amazing that many millions of non Russians
are firmly convinced that the Soviet regime is
democratic, even more democratic than America?
This absence of criticism makes it possible to tell people
that they will be free men in a system of all-round regimentation.
People imagine a regime in which all means are
owned by the state and the government is the sole employer
as a realm of freedom. They never take into account the
possibility that the almighty government of their utopia
could aim at ends of which they themselves entirely disap- .
prove.
They always tacitly assume that the dictator will do
exactly what they themselves want him to do
Ludvig Von Mises, "Burocracy" pag 108
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