| Economist Thomas Sowell defines them as people whose final output is not products or services but ideas. Ideas whose only validation process is the approval of their peers, people in academia who think just like they do. This conveniently insulates from the consequences of their ideas when they fail in the real world. In his bestselling 1968 book The Population Bomb, for example, environmentalist Paul Ehrlich said, "the battle to feed all of humanity is over. In the 1970s the world will undergo famines - hundreds of millions of people are going to starve to death in spite of any cash programs embarked upon now." Looking back more than half a century later, it is not only obvious that nothing of the sort ever happened, but many countries were stuck with unsold agricultural surpluses and populations struggling with obesity. Professor Ehrlich stuck to his doomsaying as the years went by. But his scary predictions about mass starvation never came to pass. The surprising thing is that he not only continues to receive widespread acclaim from journalists and academics but also honors and grants from prestigious institutions, including a MacArther Fellowship, widely known as the "Genius Grant." Ehrlich is hardly an exception. In the early 20th century, Astronomer and Mathematician Simon Newcomb, known for his work on celestial mechanics, said, "Flight by machines heavier than air is unpractical and insignificant, if not utterly impossible." In the 1920s, British economist John Maynard Keynes predicted that deflation, rather than inflation, would be the dominant problem of the future. Nobel Prize-winner Paul Krugman wrote in 1998, "By 2005 or so, it will become clear that the Internet's impact on the economy has been no greater than the fax machine's." This pessimism about humanity's ability to make progress and solve problems is not just restricted to economics and technology. Many intellectuals openly attack the very idea of a meritocracy, where advancement is based on ability and talent rather than class or privilege. Take Noam Chomsky, for example. Chomsky, who openly championed Hugo Chavez's rise to power in Venezuela before his economic mismanagement and political repression caused a humanitarian catastrophe, recently wrote a book entitled Requiem for the American Dream. Knowing Chomsky's mindset, I didn't want to read it. But I felt that I had to give a fair hearing to intellectuals who deny the existence of the American Dream. It would be an understatement to say I found the book unpersuasive. From the beginning, I felt like I was hearing the ravings of an overserved patron at the end of the bar. By the end, I was reminded of the gag headline featured in an episode of The Simpsons: Old Man Yells at Cloud. Of the American Dream, Chomsky says, "It's all collapsed." And the culprit, in his view, is economically successful people. He finds it deplorable that the constitution prevents the majority of Americans from organizing and taking away the property of the affluent. He is down on the country, referring to the United States as, "a settler-colonial society, the most brutal form of imperialism." It never occurs to Chomsky that there is not one acre of livable land on earth that is occupied by people who didn't, or whose ancestors didn't, take it by force. Since time immemorial, humans have seized land from prior settlers. Even tribes in North America took "native land" from other tribes in the centuries before Europeans arrived. (The exception was the first humans who crossed the land bridge from Siberia and entered the Americas more than 20,000 years ago.) But Chomsky divides the world into oppressors and the oppressed. And he is just warming up. He views the economy as a zero-sum game, where the only way one person has more is if someone else has less. He argues for sharply higher taxes, greater redistribution, and whatever confiscation is necessary to take wealth from the people who earned it and hand it over to those who didn't. In the name of fairness, equality, and social justice, of course. This idea appeals to many. But it hasn't created prosperity anywhere it's been tried. Thanks to Hugo Chavez's policies and legacy, for example, Venezuela has experienced one of the largest mass migrations in modern history. In 2024 alone, an estimated 7.7 million Venezuelans fled the country due to severe economic deprivation and political repression. Those who remained have resorted to extreme measures, including scavenging for food from dumpsters. Maybe Chomsky should stop trying to reorganize our society and stick to the only subject where he is an acknowledged expert: linguistics. It would be comforting to think that public intellectuals like Paul Ehrlich and Paul Krugman and Noam Chomsky are outliers. Sadly, they are not. Economist Thomas Sowell has written extensively about the effect of intellectuals' ideas on society. They often promote ideas that sound noble in theory but fail to work in practice. These ideas focus on systemic explanations for social problems, which fosters a sense of helplessness and dependency, two qualities that do nothing to help anyone achieve the American Dream. Many intellectuals operate in a realm detached from reality, where their ideas are judged by how they sound, not by their results. They promote ideas such as victimhood and oppression to explain economic inequalities. This can't help but have a dispiriting effect on many Americans. Rather than highlighting the values that drive success - such as hard work, perseverance, thrift, risk-taking, and personal responsibility - their narratives blame external forces. By downplaying personal agency, they convince young men and women that they are powerless to change their circumstances. This is clear in their discussions about capitalism, a system they describe as inherently exploitative and unfair. The reality? Capitalism, despite its flaws, has lifted millions out of poverty and created unprecedented opportunities for upward mobility. The disparagement of capitalism - and the promotion of socialism - have contributed to a culture of dependency, where individuals are encouraged to look to the government for solutions rather than relying on their own initiative. But the American Dream is an aspiration, something to achieve. It is not an entitlement that you collect from a government office. The influence of public intellectuals in shaping public discourse can hardly be overstated. Their work discourages personal responsibility, fosters a sense of helplessness, and undermines the values that have allowed hundreds of millions to achieve the American Dream. But you can fight back. I'll describe how in an upcoming column... Good investing, Alex | 
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