The Infantilization of an American Culture That Forgot How the World Works

EDITOR'S NOTES

I read a sharp piece over at Mises.org—worth your time—but let’s be honest, it’s thick with academic fog. So I’m cutting through the fluff and breaking it down plain and simple, without losing the grit or the flashing red warnings. This is about the rot at the heart of our culture. A society that’s forgotten where its wealth came from. A people trained to act like spoiled children who think hot water and Wi-Fi are birthrights, not the end result of sacrifice, labor, and hard decisions made by men who understood scarcity and responsibility. So here’s the plain-English breakdown—and what it means for your freedom and future.

Derek Wolfe Oct 13, 25

What the Hell Is Infantilization?

Infantilization means treating grown adults like children. But more than that, it means when a whole culture starts thinking like kids—expecting the comforts of modern life without understanding or respecting where those comforts come from.

We live in a world built by people who worked, saved, produced, and planned. But today’s population, drunk on entitlement and taught to hate capitalism, believes comfort is the default state of humanity. Spoiler alert: it’s not. Clean water, electricity, medicine, and global trade exist because of massive, intricate systems—and centuries of labor and sacrifice. Most people couldn’t explain how a pencil is made, let alone how global supply chains function. Yet they demand universal everything like it's magic.

The Dangerous Assumptions of the Economic Child

Imagine this: some bratty teens kick their parents out of the house, thinking they can run things better. But once the food runs out and the power shuts off, reality hits. That’s us right now. We’ve kicked out reason, hard work, and economic understanding—replacing them with shallow slogans about "rights" and "justice" without understanding where any of it comes from.

People like Howard Zinn believe everyone “deserves” clean water, food, and housing. Fine sentiment. But they completely ignore that those things are scarce, and someone has to produce them. The socialist mindset assumes production just happens—and the only job left is distributing it fairly. That’s not economics. That’s fantasy.

Romanticism: The Drug of the Infantile Mind

The article gets into this idea of romanticism, and here’s the simple translation: it’s when people reject reality in favor of their feelings. Romanticists believe we could all live like poets or tribal kings if only the evil capitalists stepped aside. They don’t want to face hard truths like scarcity or the disutility of labor (translation: work sucks, but you still have to do it).

Romanticism tells people they can have all the benefits of modern society without any of the boring, grinding, rational systems that make it run. It's like wanting the internet without the servers, or flying without physics. Mises saw this for what it is—a childish revolt against the real world.

Why This All Matters (And Why It’s Dangerous)

This isn’t just an intellectual problem. It’s a civilizational threat. When people believe the lie that wealth just exists—or that it’s being hoarded rather than earned—they start supporting policies that destroy the very systems that keep society functioning.

And that’s exactly what’s happening. From universal basic income to attacks on private property, the infantilized masses are being weaponized to dismantle the free market in favor of a fantasy utopia. But here's the thing—utopias built on dreams and ignorance always end in starvation and violence.

Mises called this out over a century ago. Rothbard drove the point home. And yet here we are—still acting like the wealth will last forever, even as we burn the bridges that got us here.

Final Warning and Call to Action

The infantilization of culture is not an accident. It’s a feature of the system. When the state and its technocratic overlords want control, the first step is to make the population forget how things actually work. Convince them that comfort is a human right. That redistribution is justice. That capitalism is theft. Once they buy into that lie, they’ll hand over their freedom willingly.

Don’t be one of the infants. Learn how the system works. Protect what’s yours. And start by reading Bill Brocius’s “Seven Steps to Protect Yourself from Bank Failure.” This free guide lays out practical, no-BS moves you can make today to prepare for what’s coming. Download it here:
👉 Get the Seven Steps – Before It’s Too Late

Because if you wait until the lights go out to grow up, it’s already too late.