The Most Important Study in Psychology for Libertarians

We need to discuss the most important study in Psychology as it relates to freedom. Today I want to discuss a study conducted over 50 years ago by a Dr. Stanley Milgram. This study was to analyze obedience.

The study took 3 individuals; the teacher, the learner, and the authoritarian. The teacher was to ask the learner questions, shocking him under the direction of the authoritarian for every wrong answer. Despite the pleading from the learner, about half of the subjects shocked the learner with over 400 volts.

The good news is, nobody was actually shocked, the authoritarian and the learner were both in on the experiment. While the teacher believed he was aiding the authoritarian in an experiment on learning, in reality, the teacher was the test subject, and he was being evaluated on obedience.

This shows that people will obey authority figures even if it's against their better judgement. As it currently stands, most believe the government (instead of the law) is the highest authority in the land. I believe this is potentially dangerous, and while we can't change the nature of man, we can change the nature of government.

Limited government will prevent the potential tyranny over the western world. Over 2020 we've seen what can happen when the government expands its reach; widespread recession, economic destruction, deteriorating mental health, murderous levels of starvation in the third world, etc. Most people will comply with the government, this is human nature, and we must shape the government to accommodate for this by limiting the governments reach.