Since the early origins of the State, its rulers have always turned,
as a necessary bolster to their rule, to an alliance with society's
class of intellectuals. The masses do not create their own abstract
ideas, or indeed think through these ideas independently; they follow
passively the ideas adopted and promulgated by the body of
intellectuals, who become the effective "opinion moulders" in society.
And since it is precisely a moulding of opinion on behalf of the
rulers that the State almost desperately needs, this forms a firm
basis for the age-old alliance of the intellectuals and the ruling
classes of the State. The alliance is based on a quid pro quo: on the
one hand, the intellectuals spread among the masses the idea that the
State and its rulers are wise, good, sometimes divine, and at the very
least inevitable and better than any conceivable alternatives. In
return for this panoply of ideology, the State incorporates the
intellectuals as part of the ruling elite, granting them power,
status, prestige, and material security. Furthermore, intellectuals
are needed to staff the bureaucracy and to "plan" the economy and
society."

-Murray Rothbard