Though few claim him as their own, such as leftists claim Karl Marx, Thomas Carlyle is another unappreciated historical figure. Carlyle is best known for giving economics the derogatory name "dismal science," an inversion of the phrase "gay science," which at the time (1849) referred to life-enhancing knowledge. Most people have incorrectly learned that the term "dismal science" had its origins in reference to Thomas Malthus' gloomy predictions that the global population would grow faster than food supplies, condemning mankind to perpetual poverty and starvation. My George Mason University colleague, Professor Davy Levy, and his co-author, Sandra Peart, tell the true story in their 2001 book, "The Secret History of the Dismal Science: Economics, Religion and Race in the 19th Century."

Carlyle first used the term "dismal science" in his 1849 pamphlet entitled "An Occasional Discourse on the Nigger Question." He attacked the ideas of Adam Smith, John Stuart Mill and other free market, limited government economists for their belief in the fundamental equality of man and their anti-slavery positions. The fact that economics assumes that people are all the same and are equally deserving of liberty was offensive to Carlyle and led him to call economics the dismal science. Carlyle argued that blacks were subhuman, "two-legged cattle," who needed the tutelage of whites wielding the "beneficent whip" if they were to contribute to the good of society. Carlyle was by no means alone in denouncing economics for its anti-slavery and pro-equality position.

No less a historical figure and a Christmastime favorite, Charles Dickens, author of "A Christmas Carol," shared Carlyle's positions on pro-slavery and blacks as subhuman.

Marx, Engels, Carlyle and Dickens all share one belief prevalent throughout mankind's history down to today: the belief that some people are endowed with superior intelligence and wisdom and they've been ordained to forcibly impose that wisdom on the masses.