Kakistocracy (Wikipedia)

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Kakistocracy

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A kakistocracy (/kækɪˈstɒkrəsi/, /kækɪsˈtɒ-/) is a government run by the worst, least qualified, or most unscrupulous citizens.^{[1]: 54 [2][3]} The word was coined as early as the seventeenth century.^[4] Peter Bowler has noted in his book that there is no word for the government run by the best citizens,^[a] and that the aristarchy may be the right term, but still, it could conceivably be a kakistocracy disguised as an aristocracy.^[a]

Contents

• 1Etymology
• 2History
• 3Usage
• 4See also
• 5Notes
• 6References
• 7External links

Etymology[edit source]

The word is derived from two Greek words, kakistos(κάκιστος; worst) and kratos (κράτος; rule), with a literal meaning of government by the worst people.^[5]

History[edit source]

The earliest use of the word dates to the 17th century, in Paul Gosnold's A sermon Preached at the Publique Fast the ninth day of Aug. 1644 at St. Maries:^[4]

Therefore we need not make any scruple of praying against such: against those Sanctimonious Incendiaries, who have fetched fire from heaven to set their Country in combustion, have pretended Religion to raise and maintaine a most wicked rebellion: against those Nero's, who have ripped up the wombe of the mother that bare them, and wounded the breasts that gave them sucke: against those Cannibal's who feed upon the flesh and are drunke with the bloud of their own brethren: against those Catiline's who seeke their private ends in the publicke disturbance, and have set the Kingdome on fire to rost their owne egges: against those tempests of the State, those restlesse spirits who can no longer live, then be stickling and medling; who are stung with a perpetuall itch of changing and innovating, transforming our old Hierarchy into a new Presbytery, and this againe into a newer Independency; and our well-temperd Monarchy into a mad kinde of Kakistocracy. Good Lord!^[6]

English author Thomas Love Peacock later used the term in his 1829 novel The Misfortunes of Elphin, in which he explains kakistocracy represents the opposite of aristocracy, as  aristos (ἄριστος) means "excellent" in Greek.^[7] In his 1838 Memoir on Slavery (which he supported), U.S. Senator William Harper compared kakistocracy to anarchy, and said it had seldom occurred:^[8]

Anarchy is not so much the absence of government as the government of the worst—not aristocracy but kakistocracy—a state of things, which to the honor of our nature, has seldom obtained amongst men, and which perhaps was only fully exemplified during the worst times of the French revolution, when that horrid hell burnt with its most horrid flame. In such a state of things, to be accused is to be condemned—to protect the innocent is to be guilty; and what perhaps is the worst effect, even men of better nature, to whom their own deeds are abhorrent, are goaded by terror to be forward and emulous in deeds of guilt and violence.

American poet James Russell Lowell used the term in 1876, in a letter to Joel Benton, writing, "What fills me with doubt and dismay is the degradation of the moral tone. Is it or is it not a result of Democracy? Is ours a 'government of the people by the people for the people,' or a Kakistocracy rather, for the benefit of knaves at the cost of fools?"^[9]

Usage[edit source]

In the 20th and 21st centuries, the term has been used to describe:

• The term saw increased usage during the presidency of Donald Trump, going viral in 2017 and 2018.^[4][10] It was heavily used by commentators in newspapers,^[11][12][13]political publications,^{[14][15][16][17]} and books.^[18][19]
• The Brazilian government under Jair Bolsonaro.^[20][21][22]
• The Mexican Government under Andrés Manuel López Obrador.^[23]
• The government of Russia under Boris Yeltsin and Vladimir Putin.^[24]
• The government of Egypt under Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi.^[25]
• Various governments in sub-Saharan Africa.^[26]
• Government of Malaysia under Pakatan Harapan^[27] after Malaysian general election, 2018 & under Perikatan Nasional during 2020–21 Malaysian political crisis.^[28]
• The government of the Philippines under Rodrigo Duterte^[29] and after the 2022 Philippine presidential election, which was considered to be highly influenced by disinformation campaigns on various social media platforms such as Facebook, YouTube, and TikTok.^[30]

See also[edit source]

• Corporatocracy – Society which is dominated by business interests and exploitation
• Idiocracy – 2006 film by Mike Judge
• Khakistocracy
• Kleptocracy – Form of government
• Negative selection (politics) – Aversion to the success of one's subordinates
• Ochlocracy
• Political ponerology
• Peter principle – Management concept by Laurence J. Peter
• Totalitarianism – Extreme form of authoritarianism

Notes[edit source]

1. ^ Jump up to: ^a b The Superior Person's Book of Words book.^[3]

References[edit source]

1. ^ Bowler, Peter (1985). The superior person's book of words (1 ed.). Boston. ISBN 0-87923-556-X. OCLC 11757334.
2. ^ Fiske, Robert Hartwell (2011). The Best Words. Marion Street Press. ISBN 9781933338828. Retrieved 21 November 2016.
3. ^ Jump up to: ^a b Bowler, Peter (2017). The Completely Superior Person's Book of Words. London: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc. ISBN 978-1-4088-8595-6. OCLC 1021803310.
4. ^ Jump up to: ^a b c "Trending: When Government Is Just The Worst". Merriam Webster. 29 June 2017. Retrieved 22 August 2017.
5. ^ Evans, Rod L (2011). Thingamajigs and Whatchamacallits: Unfamiliar Terms for Familiar Things. Penguin. p. 87. ISBN 9781101515921. Retrieved 21 November 2016.
6. ^ Gosnold, Paul (1644). "A sermon preached at the publique fast the ninth day of Aug. 1644 at St. Maries, Oxford, before the honorable members of the two Houses of Parliament there assembled by Paul Gosnold ... ; and published by authority". University of Oxford Text Archive. Retrieved 22 August 2017.
7. ^ "Kakistocracy". Dictionary.com.
8. ^ Harper, William (1838). Memoir on Slavery: Read Before the Society for the Advancement of Learning, of South Carolina, at its annual meeting at Columbia, 1837. J. S. Burges. p. 49. Retrieved 27 November 2016.
9. ^ Scudder, Horace (1901). James Russell Lowell, A Biography. Riverside Press, Cambridge, Mass. pp. 193–196. Retrieved 13 May 2022.
10. ^ Selk, Avi (13 April 2018). "Kakistocracy, a 374-year-old word that means 'government by the worst,' just broke the dictionary". The Washington Post. Retrieved 2018-11-21.
11. ^ Lizza, Ryan (2016-11-16). "Donald Trump's First, Alarming Week as President-Elect". The New Yorker. Retrieved 2016-11-21.
12. ^ Krugman, Paul (2017-01-16). "With All Due Disrespect". The New York Times. Retrieved 2017-01-19.
13. ^ Marsden, Harriet (2016-11-17). "Kakistocracy may just be the perfect word to describe the Trump government". The Independent. Retrieved 2016-11-21.
14. ^ Ornstein, Norm (2017-10-09). "There's a Word for the State of American Democracy: Kakistocracy". The Atlantic. Retrieved 2017-12-06.
15. ^ McClennen, Sophia A. (2016-12-17). "Degeneration nation: It takes a village of idiots to raise a kakistocracy like Donald Trump's". Salon. Retrieved 2017-01-15.
16. ^ Hasan, Mehdi (2017-01-20). "Donald Trump ushers in a new era of kakistocracy: government by the worst people". New Statesman. Retrieved 20 January 2017.
17. ^ Bouie, Jamelle (2016-11-18). "Government by the Worst Men". Slate. Retrieved 2016-11-26.
18. ^ Gessen, Masha (2020). Surviving Autocracy. New York: Riverhead Books. p. 28. ISBN 978-0593188934.
19. ^ Moore, Marshall (2019). "An end to monstrosity: horror, queer representation, and the Trump kakistocracy". In McCollum, Victoria (ed.). Make America Hate Again: Trump-Era Horror and the Politics of Fear. Routledge. ISBN 978-1138498280.
20. ^ Warde, Ibrahim (1 June 2020). "A caquistocracia". Le Monde Diplomatique Brasil (in Brazilian Portuguese). Retrieved 25 October 2021.
21. ^ Rodrigues, Sérgio (2020-08-12). "Caquistocracia, o pior de nós". Folha de S.Paulo (in Brazilian Portuguese). Retrieved 2021-11-10.
22. ^ Costa-Pereira, Raul (2021). "Letter from Brazil: Teaching and Mentoring in a Sadder Nation". The Bulletin of the Ecological Society of America. 102 (4): e01927. doi:10.1002/bes2.1927. ISSN 2327-6096. S2CID 239699576. Facing the COVID-19 pandemic during Bolsonaro’s kakistocracy (i.e., a government run by the worst and most unscrupulous citizens) has taken a heavy toll on all of us.
23. ^ "La kakistocracia al mando". El Financiero. June 2020.
24. ^ Abadjian, Vahram (July 2010). "Kakistocracy or the true story of what happened in the post-Soviet area". Journal of Eurasian Studies. 1 (2): 153–163. doi:10.1016/j.euras.2010.04.009. S2CID 153850742 – via Science Direct.
25. ^ Ali, Amro (12 November 2016). "Kakistocracy: a word we need to revive". openDemocracy.
26. ^ Okafor, Collins; Smith, L. Murphy; Ujah, Nacasius U. (29 July 2014). "Kleptocracy, nepotism, kakistocracy: impact of corruption in Sub-Saharan African countries". International Journal of Economics and Accounting. 5 (2): 97. doi:10.1504/IJEA.2014.063736 – via Inderscience Publishers.
27. ^ "Kerajaan PH Kerajaan Kakistocracy". umno-online.my. 2018-08-13. Retrieved 2021-11-08.
28. ^ Report, Sarawak. "From Kleptocracy To Kakistocracy - Malaysia's Sad Progress". Sarawak Report. Retrieved 2021-11-08.
29. ^ "We're no longer a democracy. Are we now a kakistocracy?". manilatimes.net. 2016-12-21. Retrieved 2022-04-29.
30. ^ "Philippine 'Avengers' battle disinformation before election". rappler.com. 2022-04-21. Retrieved 2022-04-21.

External links[edit source]

•  The dictionary definition of kakistocracy at Wiktionary

Categories: 

• Jair Bolsonaro
• Pejorative terms for forms of government
• Political corruption
• Presidency of Donald Trump
• Presidency of Ronald Reagan
• Rule by a subset of population