The Nuisance Value of Intellectuals

Maybe the greatest king any nation ever had was King David of Israel. The reason, of course, was that he was a just man. No people ever had a human king more concerned about protecting the innocent than Israel when David ruled.

It was a characteristic that appeared early in his life, when he was watching his father’s sheep. When a lion or a bear attacked and stole a lamb, David went to battle with the animal. It’s hard to imagine a ‘one on one’ fight with a bear or a lion but it’s nearly impossible to imagine going after the wild beast to save a lamb. No wonder David was a man after God’s own heart.

David brought the same sense of protection for innocents to the office of king as he had exemplified as a shepherd. During the forty years of his reign Israel grew from a rag tag country of scattered wanderers to a powerful nation with great wealth.

But this growth was not without its detractors. In fact, Absalom, his own son was the chief critic. He would stand outside the city gate and talk with people as they entered Jerusalem. Almost every citizen welcomed the opportunity to talk with the Crown Prince. And Absalom gained support to oppose the king. How could citizens turn against a king who had given them such a rapid and unprecedented increase in prosperity and world power?

The story is in the book of Samuel. It started when David allowed a terrible crime to go unpunished. “After this, Absalom provided a chariot and horses for himself, and an escort of fifty men. He would get up early and go and stand by the road at the city gate. Whenever someone came there with a dispute that he wanted the king to settle, Absalom would call him over and ask him where he was from. And after the man had told him what tribe he was from, Absalom would say, ‘Look, the law is on your side, but there is no representative of the king to hear your case.’ And he would add, ‘How I wish I were a judge! Then anyone who had a dispute or a claim could come to me, and I would give him justice.’ When the man would approach Absalom to bow down before him, Absalom would reach out, take hold of him, and kiss him. Absalom did this with every Israelite who came to the king for judgment, and so he won their loyalty.” (2 Samuel 15:1-6 GNB)

I confess to seeing a strong parallel between the Israel of David’s day and the USA today. We are the recipients of blessings we did not earn. The men who founded our country were possessed of wisdom, understanding and courage that few men in the history of the world have known. They gave up fortunes, families and some even their lives to establish a country based on justice. And we have prospered. Yet we have detractors.

Economist Joseph Schumpeter who lived through the period leading up to the Great Depression until 1950 offered profound insights regarding critics of capitalism. In particular he referred to intellectuals whose contributions he called a sort of “nuisance value.”

Schumpeter coined the phrase "creative destruction" as a term to describe new businesses which replace the old as, for example, Wal-Mart replacing the country store. That created an ever improving market but it also created a resentment of capitalism by those who were hurt by what was lost.

Capitalism, he taught, led to patterns of thought that he termed "rationalistic individualism." In other words, one of the benefits of capitalism was that we learn to think as individuals but an individual must think rationally to succeed. The rational mind calls into question the political and economic institutions that are the status quo. Since capitalism requires an argument that is too difficult for many people to grasp, most people stop accepting it on faith and lose sight of the real merits.

Intellectuals determine the climate of their societies through teaching, writing and influence within government circles. Ironically the rise of the intellectual class is a product of capitalism but, for intellectuals, criticism sells. Therefore they criticize capitalism and they influence the masses to dislike it. Lastly, in a capitalistic society, there is an overproduction of intellectuals. In a system of supply and demand, there are too many of them and they receive less economic reward than they think they deserve; "If I'm so smart, why ain't I rich?"

Absalom was a true intellectual. He had received wonderful gifts from David both by being a citizen of Israel and also by being his son. Yet he thought his nuisance value was more important that the achievements of his father. Never mind that Absalom had never fought a lion or a bear; that he had never slain a Goliath; that he had never built a great nation from the debris left by a wicked king. Vanity had taken over his mind and the good of the nation mattered not.

Sometimes when I read a journalist or hear a politician talk about how bad this country is I want to ask, “Has this man ever fought a lion?”

Until next time,