In the first video of the series, Academica Agent (AA) lays out, as logical syllogisms, his conception of the basic stances of socialism and juxtaposes them to those of Milton Friedman, Ludwig von Mises, and Murray Rothbard, respectively. He then deduces, based on this framing, that the three all accept some tenet of the socialist claims and that, therefore, the conflict between socialism and each of these schools of libertarianism ultimately boils down to a disagreement on means, not ends. Given that libertarianism and socialism share the same ends, he argues, it should not surprise us that libertarian arguments have failed to make substantial headway against socialism in the last century; the defeat of socialism “must come from a deeper place.”

What are these shared ends? AA argues that Friedman would agree with socialists that the sought-after end is maximum equality, but believes that socialism always increases inequality; that Mises would agree with socialists that it is material prosperity, but believes that the free market is the best means of attaining it; and that Rothbard would agree with socialists that it is maximum freedom, but believes that the free market is the best way of achieving it.

Now, it should be immediately obvious that AA attributes to socialists three incompatible views: either the sought-after end is equality, material prosperity, or freedom, but not all three at the same time. His glossing over the fact that the three distinct libertarian positions are each in partial agreement with one of the three separate and distinct socialist positions, respectively, makes it appear, as he implies, that libertarian arguments—regardless of the kind of libertarianism from which they spring—merely constitute a technical disagreement on one aspect of a monolithic socialist position. This allows him to aggregate all these claims together and state that “libertarians and socialists ultimately share the same goals,” since they share the same “metaphysical and even moral assumptions,” when, in truth, neither the libertarians nor the socialists share the same moral assumptions within their own respective camps.