The Adam Smith Institute reports:

Vaclav Klaus, President of the Czech Republic, spoke to the Mont Pelerin Society meeting in Iceland about the attraction which intellectuals feel for socialism and similar ideologies. He quoted Hayek’s observation that intellectuals are drawn to visions and ideas, as well as to systems which accord them a greater share of influence and power. Intellectuals feel ‘under-valued’ by the market, in that it puts a value on them less than they think appropriate.

The case Klaus put was that the ‘hard’ version of socialism (ie communism) might be over, but the weak versions, including social democracy, the welfare state, and the ’social model,’ now posed the threat of big and patronizing government, high regulation, and large-scale income redistribution. Intellectuals are attracted to this type of thinking because it elevates their importance and the chance to impose their ideas on a world which would otherwise reject them.

The threat these days, Klaus said, came from the spread of illiberal ideas OUTSIDE of socialism. He instanced ambitious social engineering, radical human rightsism, the enforcement of the perceived good, environmentalism, what he called ‘NGO-ism,’ and Europeanism (meaning moves to an integrated European over-government). All, he said, were substitute idelogies for socialism, and all provided niches for interference by intellectuals in the spontaneous activities of human societies.

It was a tough speech, identifying the new threats to liberal values, and the allure they always have for intellectuals who stand aloof from the real world.

It should also be noted that since the Adam Smith Institute is a European institute, they use the term liberal in the traditional sense, not in the North American meaning. In other words, a liberal, both in its traditional usage and in its European usage, means someone who strongly supports free-markets, less regulations, and an overall Laissez-faire economy, what we would associate more with conservatives and especially libertarians here in the United States.