In his essay Why do Intellectuals Oppose Capitalism?, the late Harvard philosopher Robert Nozick hypothesised that the considerable disdain with which many public intellectuals view capitalism was a result of their school-yard days. The schools, too, exhibited and thereby taught the principle of reward in accordance with (intellectual) merit ... The wider market society, however, taught a different lesson. There the greatest rewards did not go to the verbally brightest.
Essentially, Nozick suggests that individuals that did well in class but struggled in the more 'anarchic' environment of the playground naturally seek a return to a centrally planned system where they were more successful.
Recently I stumbled upon the most compelling piece of evidence for this hypothesis I have seen to date. Witness this piece from Chris Trotter called "Rise of Life's Bullies".
If schools really were about preparing us for life, they'd not only teach us how to endure bullies, they'd teach us how to become one. What is a bully, after all, but a person who has embraced the basic principles of social organisation more ruthlessly than his or her peers?
Indeed, Trotter seems to think the market is indistinguishable from being bullied at school. It is unsurprising then that he views it with such disdain. He even attempts to offer an evolutionary justification for the apparent prevalence of bullying:
Millennia have taught us that when the powerful start exercising their power, the smartest thing for those not involved to do is to stand well clear. Those brave (or foolish) individuals who, in ages past, displayed their empathy too openly, or recklessly intervened on behalf of the victim, were clearly placing themselves at an evolutionary disadvantage.
This is not strictly true - there are many evolutionary advantages to a certain level of altruism. We routinely see recpirocal altruism and kin selection, to name just two. Trotter's intuitions about human behaviour are highly negative - and seeing as many such intuitions are formed at a young age, perhaps this lends weight to Nozick's thesis.