Why Scientists and extremely smart people are usually socialist/leftist

No, I am not claiming that socialism and planned economies are smart, I am merely discussing the interesting nature of political views on the part of scientists, intellectuals, engineers, etc, namely, that they, historically, have largely favored economic planning on the part of the state (socialism).

This was extensively talked about by Hayek, but I think Bastiat gave us the best insight: Scientists lean leftist and socialist because socialism itself makes the politician a scientist:

quote:

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The modern politicians, particularly those of the Socialist school, found their different theories upon one common hypothesis; and surely a more strange, a more presumptuous notion, could never have entered a human brain.

They divide mankind into two parts. Men in general, except one, form the first; the politician himself forms the second, which is by far the most important.

In fact, they begin by supposing that men are devoid of any principle of action, and of any means of discernment in themselves; that they have no initiative; that they are inert matter, passive particles, atoms without impulse; at best a vegetation indifferent to its own mode of existence, susceptible of assuming, from an exterior will and hand an infinite number of forms, more or less symmetrical, artistic, and perfected.

Moreover, every one of these politicians does not hesitate to assume that he himself is, under the names of organizer, discoverer, legislator, institutor, or founder, this will and hand, this universal initiative, this creative power, whose sublime mission it is to gather together these scattered materials, that is, men, into society.

Starting from these data, as a gardener according to his caprice shapes his trees into pyramids, parasols, cubes, cones, vases, espaliers, distaffs, or fans; so the Socialist, following his chimera, shapes poor humanity into groups, series, circles, subcircles, honeycombs, or social workshops, with all kinds of variations. And as the gardener, to bring his trees into shape, needs hatchets, pruning hooks, saws, and shears, so the politician, to bring society into shape, needs the forces which he can only find in the laws; the law of tariffs, the law of taxation, the law of assistance, and the law of education.

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Indeed, during the 19th and 20th centuries, when central planning still had a large amount of support, it was the physicists, the scientifically minded folks, who were some of the biggest proponents of such powerful statism.

This explains why SpidermanTUba things the way he does.