They hold this truth to be self-evident: Only a fool believes that all men are created equal.
Look around you, they say. Most Americans are takers, not makers. Rich people work harder. Poor people make bad choices. Some racial groups are born with more intelligence than others. That may sound harsh to some, but remember, they say, “empathy is a weakness.”
These observations come from some of the most prominent people in the country. They seemingly reject the foundational American belief — enshrined in the Declaration of Independence — that “all men are created equal.” Instead, these people belong to a “shadow tradition” of anti-egalitarians who have fought against America’s founding ideas — and their movement is going mainstream, one historian says in a new book.
These anti-egalitarians “fiercely, angrily, and passionately” preach variations of the same argument: that extreme inequality is not only inevitable in America but is also good for the country, says Kim Phillips-Fein. Her book, “Country of Lords: Neo-Aristocrats, Social Darwinists, Tech Utopians, and the Long Fight Against Equality in America,” traces this line of thinking back to some of the country’s Founding Fathers.
Phillips-Fein cites such prominent people as Elon Musk and venture capitalist Peter Thiel, as well as ideological predecessors like John Adams, steel tycoon Andrew Carnegie and carmaker Henry Ford.
