How to Change the World

Upon discovering the freedom philosophy, many people feel as though they have discovered the solution to society’s problems. And indeed, they have discovered a critical part of it, namely, the rules and social institutions that will lead to human flourishing.

But simply possessing these ideas can’t be the totality of the solution. If it were, we would have already solved the problem.

As it turns out, there’s a second problem we need to solve if we are to achieve freedom and prosperity, and this is the problem of persuading the masses. As Mises wrote in Human Action, “The flowering of human society depends on two factors: the intellectual power of outstanding men to conceive sound social and economic theories, and the ability of these or other men to make these ideologies palatable to the majority.” The first factor has been essentially satisfied. The second is the one we are stuck on.

In light of this, creating a free and prosperous world is not really an economics or philosophy problem at this point. It’s a psychology problem. To change the world, the libertarian must have a firm grasp not only of the rules and institutions of a free society, but also of the art of changing people’s minds. In short, he must be a student of persuasion.

One good place to begin this study is the aptly named book Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion, written by Robert Cialdini in 1984. In this famous book, Cialdini outlines six key principles of persuasion. They have been summarized as follows:

1. Reciprocity: When we receive something, we feel obliged to give something back.
2. Consistency: We feel compelled to be consistent with what we’ve said/done in the past.
3. Social proof: When we’re uncertain how to behave or react, we look to others for answers.
4. Liking: We’re more likely to agree to someone’s request if we know and like him/her.
5. Authority: We tend to obey figures of authority (people with titles or expertise).
6. Scarcity: We perceive something to be more valuable when it’s less available.

Knowledge and Character

Though all six of these principles would be valuable to study and apply, two of them in particular stand out: Authority and Liking. They are noteworthy because they seem to be 1) relatively easy to implement in a wide variety of contexts, and 2) very impactful when implemented.

One way of implementing the Authority principle is to make an impression with titles and aesthetics. But the real power comes when you just are a genuine authority. When you really know what you’re talking about, people listen. When you have genuine mastery and expertise, people will be far more willing to hear you out and change their minds based on your ideas. As Robert Heinlein said, “your best weapon is between your ears and under your scalp—provided it’s loaded.”

The practical takeaway is this: To change the world, we must be good at persuading. To be good at persuading, we must, among other things, be intellectual authorities. To be authorities, we must know our stuff. And to know our stuff, we need to crack open some books and get reading. And I don’t just mean reading the basics. We need to be familiar with every political philosophy out there. We need to have answers to every argument. We need to be autodidacts, erudites, polymaths, the most well-read person in the room, no matter the room.

That’s incredibly hard to accomplish, of course, but imagine the persuasive power of such a person. No matter how crazy your ideas are, people would feel compelled to take them seriously.

The other standout principle is Liking. Now, anyone can be decent, but again, that’s not enough. If we really want to be persuasive, we need to be the most likable person in the room. We should be known for our approachability, our easygoing attitude, our sense of humor, our charm, wit, laughter, warmth, exuberance, maturity, and congeniality. We don’t have to be the life of the party. But we do have to be the kind of person other people like being around.

The shorthand I’ve developed for these two principles is knowledge and character. If we just dedicate ourselves to working on those two things, I’m convinced we would all be 10 times as effective at persuasion, and thus at changing the world for the better.

One of the most high-profile examples of these principles working is the political conversion of Dave Rubin. As you may know, Dave Rubin was a leftist who became a libertarian roughly six years ago after talking with some big names on the right and being persuaded by their arguments. What you might not know, however, is why exactly he found these individuals so persuasive.

Here’s how he told the story in an interview last October.

“As far as my wake up, there were a couple moments, the most famous one which now I think has been seen probably about 50 million times on YouTube is when I had Larry Elder on [in January 2016]. Larry Elder is a black conservative, really a libertarian, but this was…