by Joakim Book
Mises.org
In many years of lecturing at Mises University, Judge Napolitano has given the same—terrifying—ending to his introductory speech. Not until the horrors of this year did it dawn on me that perhaps his point has its basis in reality.
The dear judge often mentions, almost like a joke, the libido dominandi—the desire to dominate, or the will to power, harking back to Augustine of Hippo’s centuries-old writing. We find similar notions in Friedrich Hayek’s “Why the Worst Get on Top” chapter in The Road to Serfdom and most certainly in the eerily relevant writing of Robert Higgs.
The memorable ending in Napolitano’s lecture is: