![]() However, we should be mindful of that resentment, lest it lead us down dark paths. And it is entirely justified to deeply resent the depredations of the kakistocrats lording it over us. This is an intolerable situation, to be sure. So a government “for the benefit of knaves at the cost of fools” seems like an apt description for the state of the nation, as well as the world. Those holding the highest offices tend to be venal, abusive, and incompetent in their official conduct, and are frequently revealed to be dissolute-sometimes heinous-in their personal lives.Īnd the masses who foolishly elevated such people to power have paid dearly for it in lost liberty and tumbling living standards. Looking at the state of America today, we seem to be subject to the kakistocracy Read foresaw. Kakistocracy means "government by the worst." Read particularly liked James Russell Lowell’s definition: “a government… for the benefit of knaves at the cost of fools.” In 1963, Leonard Read warned Americans that “our once-upon-a-time Republic” was degenerating into something else "we are headed into a kakistocracy,” he wrote. “A Republic,” he answered, “if you can keep it.” In 1787, as Benjamin Franklin left the final session of the Constitutional Convention, he was asked what form of government the delegates had given America.
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