This week, I learned a wonderful new word:
Kakistocracy. I’d never heard it before until the other day when I was watching a recent video by Jello Biafra (
WWJD #82). The term is defined as “a system of government that is run by the worst, least qualified, and/or most unscrupulous citizens.” I can’t think of a more
perfect description of the current political state of the western world, particularly the US and UK. We’ve allowed the
worst of us to amass the most power and this year has been bearing the fruit of their incompetence and corruption in a manner so profoundly destructive, we’ve literally been witnessing the collapse of our civilization. The question is: How did we let this happen? How is it that the most contemptible, idiotic and useless examples of humanity have managed to maneuver themselves into every significant seat of power conceivable within our society?
I think the easy answer to this complex question is
MONEY. Those who have it get the advantages; those who don’t, get the shaft. It is, however, a bit more complex than that. To attempt to understand it, you have to look at the way capitalism has evolved in the west in the past century or so since the dawn of the industrial revolution, particularly within the last 40 years. I think the crux of it can be found by looking at the difference between the idealized conception of capitalism vs what’s actually come to pass as a (dis)functioning reality. To understand the “ideal” you have to look at the person who today gets inexplicably lauded by the right and condemned by the left. To this point, it’s time for a bit of true confessions from me.
When I was a young adult, during the 1980s, a friend of mine gave me a book, The Fountainhead, by Ayn Rand. I fell in love with it. Firstly, Rand spoke plainly and logically and without recourse to religion or mysticism. As an atheist and agnostic myself, this was fundamentally appealing to me. She was a rationalist and promoted reason as a methodology and intellect as a value. What people now label as a “lack of empathy”, I interpreted as mere selectivity. I just saw that she promoted a philosophy of caring for people who deserved it and not sacrificing yourself for deadbeats. She didn’t advocate investing time and effort into people who were abusive, unappreciative, disrespectful, ignorant or prejudiced, something which was viewed as the height of irrationality. I agreed with that stance and I still do, at least in terms of personal relationships. As an aspiring musician and artist, I related to the struggle of her hero, architect Howard Roark. He was a symbol of pure creative integrity: uninfluenced, unimpressed and unimpeded by the judgements of others. It was an attitude I sought to ingrain into my own works and approach to life. What I gleaned from her writing was an appreciation for innovation, imagination, integrity, commitment, honesty, intellect and a personal passion to be true to one’s creative vision. I still feel this way. I don’t think these are negative values.
As I got deeper into her writings, I began to learn about her conceptions of economics and her championing of capitalism as an “unknown ideal”. In her mind, it was an economic system which was driven by a desire to acknowledge the
best and
brightest through rewards commensurate with their achievements and abilities. It was also about having the right to retain and control the fruits of one’s labors: private property, unassailable by taxation. And it was about the creation of values: goods and services of quality and distinction. Her conception of this system was that it would be self-regulating. That the corrupt, the crass and the criminal would be weeded out by a kind of natural selection whereby they would ultimately fail in their businesses because the public would not support them. Bad employers would not be able to retain staff nor appeal to enough customers to survive. In this regard, she felt that nearly every aspect of civilization would benefit from privatization with capitalistic profit motives as a driving factor.
Profit, in her eyes, meant benefiting in some way from one’s efforts and exchanges and never sacrificing “something of value” for “something of lesser value”. Her ultimate manifestation of these ideals was John Galt in Atlas Shrugged, an inventor and engineer, seemingly inspired by Nicola Tesla, intent on revolutionizing the energy industry in a similar manner to Tesla’s tower delivering free electricity through the air. On the surface it was all very noble and heroic stuff.
That idealism was founded on a premise which has proven to be rather unsupported in the real world. It’s the idea that ethics and morality are somehow latent, emergent properties of capitalism. Though there were provisions for the existence of legal systems to resolve legitimate disputes or disagreements, there was no accounting for our innate disposition towards deception and criminality. Humanity was given the benefit of the doubt, though we have proven most definitely undeserving of it. It’s an assumption which has proven far from true and something of a fatal oversight. As a result, what has manifest
instead of a system for championing the exceptional is an economic system with a pathological, narcotic addiction to wealth and an obsession with the ruthlessly expedient when approaching that objective. Rather than celebrating quality and craft, the system we have only seeks to concentrate riches in as few hands as possible and then grow that wealth exponentially while sacrificing any and all values regarding human quality of life in the process. Standards of living, environmental sustainability, respect for life: all of them are subject to the chopping block if it should prove expedient to do so for the sake of even a modicum of profit. Whenever an innovative product is put on the market, the natural inertia of the marketplace moves to look for ways to devalue it: to reduce its cost, to cut expenses on its manufacturing, to trim the investment required for staffing and increase the quotas of productivity expected from those still doing the work of creating it. Corners are cut, inferior materials are substituted while any and all means are employed to offer less and financially gain more. This is the exact opposite of the process that was envisioned by Rand’s conception of the system, at least as far as I interpret it from her writings.
When it comes to celebrating intelligence and achievement, in practical application and based on a continuous downward spiral of cost cutting and quality reduction, those attributes are seen as hindrances in our real world manifestation of the “free market”. Ethics and morality are therefore inconvenient because they identify the shortcomings and contradictions inherent within that process. The system, as it stands, depends on a sociopathy and psychopathy which divorces itself from any form of empathy as a means to enact the most brutal and harsh conditions conceivable in order to achieve its ends. The result is a form of anti-intellectualism which seeks to stifle rationality and reason while distracting the populace from critical examination with mind-numbing trinkets of fascination in the hopes that people won’t realize the nature of the system bleeding them dry. That’s assuming the populace has managed to grumble enough to convince their masters to indulge such diversions. More commonly, simple naked force is used in less developed societies to compel people to participate in their own abuse. In the end, we find ourselves being lead by the nose by idiotic and incompetent criminals who are incapable of even the most meager critical insights.
During a brief period in the mid-20th century, this rigid division between “have” and “have not” was mitigated by an era of upward mobility which created an effective middle class population. Unionization and labor standards enabled people to build personal wealth without having to inherit it. This became the “American dream”: the ladder up which supposedly anyone could climb. Well maybe you could ascend it if your skin was the right color. Of course there were some exceptions permitted to disprove and obscure the rule, but the majority still found themselves nailed to their crosses for the duration. However, as we’ve begun to reach a breaking point in terms of resources and impacts to our environment, those in power, aided by those who did manage to climb the ladder, have pulled that ladder up and have been steadfastly working towards undoing any progress made in the previous century. There has since been a systematic dismantling of the societal framework which so many worked to create through two world wars and countless social movements. The system, in the end, continues to perpetuate itself, but how?
The primary means by which this sort of social order can survive for any length of time is by virtue of
privilege, by rigging the game so only those on the inside can win while everyone else merely subsists or sinks entirely.
Money is the ticket into this cabal of incompetence. Those born into wealth and privilege are beneficiaries while those who suffer poverty, often aggravated by their skin color and geographic heritage, are denied and abused. Though this is an initial driver in sustaining this system, there are two other key factors involved.
The second ties back to Rand’s other major work, Atlas Shrugged, which describes a world where the intelligent and the capable abandon civilization to its follies and fools while choosing to live isolated from it all as the rest of the world collapses. In a sense this is very much the case with our modern world as so many of the able and intelligent of it have given up any hope of change. Buddhism refers to the “Trance of Sorrow”, which is one of the first stages upon the road to enlightenment. It is the point at which the adept realizes the hopelessness of existence, expressed by consciousness of mortality, and is tempted to give up on life. This is where we have lost most of our intelligentsia as they have withdrawn from the world and do not endeavor to participate in its development. And this is not an unreasonable tactic. I have, for much of my adult life, felt like the state of the world is beyond my ability to influence and that the only path forward is to simply let it fail or even give it a nudge closer to the edge whenever that option presented itself. It’s an assumption that change will only happen when the current system collapses and we finally have an opportunity to begin anew. There’s still a significant part of me which is convinced this is a viable strategy.
The third factor in sustaining this system is the so-called “democratic” process and its inexorable tendency to reinforce the lowest common denominator. It’s another form of inertia which tends towards an overall dumbing down and oversimplification within the culture. When you have an uninformed, ignorant electorate, they’re going to make bad decisions and support incompetent people and irrational propositions. The system takes great efforts to ensuring that the voting populace, or those who are allowed to vote, is kept distracted, docile and distant from any understanding of the issues or any comprehension of the qualities necessary to govern effectively. The cult of celebrity is used in this regard to foist candidates onto the ballot based on popularity and personality. It’s not necessary to master any skills or command any expertise in any area as long as you’re able to perform sufficiently for the amusement of whomever you wish to scratch an “X” next to your name. When the above three key factors are taken together, the manifestation of rule by the incompetent is not only feasible, but inevitable.
What I find perplexing is how someone like Ayn Rand has been embraced by the conservative, religious right. Having significant familiarity with her works, her message still remains, in my mind, diametrically opposed to theirs. She was an atheist, for one. She was a strict rationalist who abhorred the concepts of faith and mysticism. Her conception of capitalism is still miles away from the “greed is good” corruption and predatory nature of the sharks prowling the economic waters since the dawn of the Reagan era. She despised him and everything he represented. There is cause to consider the possibility that Rand’s principals and values have been deliberately co-opted by the alt-right in order to subvert them and undermine the very tools which could be used to defeat them. She was far from perfect, but her basic conceptions of rationality and reason remain, I contend, quite sound. These same principals can be found enshrined in the likes of groups like The Satanic Temple, one of the foremost politically adept anti-fascist organizations currently active in the US, who are diligently working against allowing theocratic tendencies to destroy the separation of church and state in that country.
I’m well aware, at this stage of my life, of where Rand’s philosophy has failed in terms of providing some kind of balance between “selfishness” as a “virtue” and empathy as a necessity for creating an ethical, morally sound civilization. Strict adherence to purely rational processes must also be balanced by the recognition of emotional responses. Logic will always have a limit beyond which intuition has to fill in the gaps because omniscience does not exist. Being concerned with one’s own welfare shouldn’t negate or be mutually exclusive of the ability to care for the well-being of others. The concept was
NOT simply selfishness as an end in itself, but
rational self-interest where one didn’t simply act on whims but with reasoned consideration of results and consequences. This can be seen again in the sloppy interpretations of Aleister Crowley’s “do what thou wilt” axiom, where people misinterpret it as a license for wanton indulgence without responsibility. Being true to one’s natural tendencies cannot be pursued in a vacuum, unconcerned with the impacts on the world around us. We should be able to comprehend that when others suffer and are left in positions of poverty and squalor it drags
all of us down and, as we’ve witnessed first hand this year, makes us
all susceptible to physical threats like pandemics and disease.
We are all interdependent and when it comes to societal infrastructures, capitalism as it currently operates, divorced from all consideration of its impacts, cannot be used as a method for managing most aspects of that framework. Corporations, in this environment, become thoughtless monstrosities which only seek to ensure their own fiscal well-being without any consideration for the world in which they exist. The people who maintain them are not in control. Like dead-eyed sharks, they mindlessly function only by rote mechanics. They merely respond to stimulus in terms of seeking out solutions to monetary issues. The human component is no more than a tangential consideration and only so far as they are necessary to perform essential functions. When they can be replaced by machinery or computers or cheaper labor pools, they are chucked into the bin without any hesitation.
There is a place for a market of exchange of goods and services and it can be a mutually beneficial system when done fairly and with a sense of caring for your trading partners. When you don’t view people as prey, you don’t seek to leave them as carcasses after you’ve done business with them. Marketplaces cannot be left to their own devices in terms of oversight. Rand’s contention that they would somehow moderate themselves was wholly ignorant of human nature. You must have some sort of regulations in place to ensure fairness in the system and observance of considerations in terms of things like environmental and societal impacts as well as public safety. There have to be formal standards and practices which are recognized and accredited to ensure objective adherence and consistent observance. These things are necessary to ensure things like food isn’t contaminated and appliances don’t burst into flames and burn houses down. This kind of bureaucracy is
essential within a civilized marketplace.
Outside of this, in areas like the legal system, policing, medicine, education and public works (highways, power, water & sewage, etc.), financial profit
cannot be used as a motive for operation in
any way. These things form the framework of a civilization and must function as mutually beneficial to
all participants in that society. They should seek to only operate within agreed-upon budgets funded by public input through reasonable taxation of the marketplace. Healthcare is a perfect example of how this can go very wrong when driven by profit motives. Curing illness is no longer the goal in western medicine. Rather,
maintaining it is the objective because that’s how you keep people coming back for more of your medications and treatments. You don’t want them better because then they’re no longer a source of profits. Even in a semi-socialized system, it becomes a completely counter-intuitive process.
Though the situation is quite dire, I do have a
shred of optimism that we might be able to reform ourselves before we hit rock bottom: that place beyond redemption from which we may not be able to find recovery. The thing about a kakistocracy is that it is, ultimately, run by mostly very ignorant people and that is an advantage for the rest of us. They understand neither subtlety, craft nor cunning. Watching that orange buffoon in the White House is proof that the only thing he comprehends is the bludgeon. “TRUMP SMASH” is his only strategy. He may be abetted by a few possessing a modicum of guile, but their objectives are still primal and primitive: power and wealth. Enlightenment is something they are incapable of grasping nor aspiring towards. They prefer to hunker in their shrouded bunkers, hoarding their bangles and beads, thinking these things represent true value and failing to understand that life is about experience and engagement and how you live it. That’s not to say there aren’t a handful of particularly malevolent people possessing enough intelligence to put forward some effective strategies. If it weren’t for these provocateurs, the conservative grip on the political main stage would have no chance of success at all. The issue here is that they are operating unopposed. As long as the liberal intelligentsia remain resigned and defeated, or worse yet, co-opted by trying to sustain the current system in a kind of “have their cake and eat it too” neoliberal death-spiral, alt-right/conservative minions will continue to run roughshod over the political landscape.
This year seems like we’ve reached a stage where our civilization has hit the boiling point. The heat has been rising gradually for the past century as we’ve succumbed to greater and greater influence by the incompetent and the corrupt. We’re all that hapless frog failing to notice how hot the water has become and we’re all about to be cooked. Once we are, we can’t be uncooked. Our time is nearly up and we’re going to see very soon whether we’re on a path to destruction, with only the hope of the survivors rebuilding from the rubble, or if we can wrest control of this bus away from the idiot driving it before we go off the cliff.
