Every December, The Economist summarizes key events and trends and finds the ever-popular “word of the year.”
It’s useful to know that this magazine has been pushing back against populism as it has risen in the United States and around the world, but I don’t think it’s necessarily been in a consistent way. The real problem is not between right and left, but the preference for collective choice over individual choice that is characteristic of both. (However, there were some encouraging signs that the prestigious magazine was evolving toward its classically liberal 19th-century roots.)
The Economist’s word of the year for 2024 is “kakistocracy”: rule by the worst. It comes from the ancient Greek kakistos (κάκιστος), meaning “worst”, and, of course, kratia (κρατία), meaning “domination” or “power”. In contrast to, for example, the case of “aristocracy,” the derivative term “oyster aristocracy” for the worst people to rule has not yet taken root, but we can hope that it will. Even if Harris were elected to replace Trump, the word of the year in 2024 would still have great meaning. That is also true in many other countries.
In his 1944 book The Road to Serfdom, future Nobel laureate in economics Fredrich Hayek wrote that as a state gains power, whether it is a single dictator worshiped by the majority or , even an all-powerful democratic majority foresaw that the worst people would become rulers. This regime will be supported by those with the lowest moral and intellectual standards and the most gullible. They will accept the principle that the ends justify the means and will unite against the scapegoat. People will lose “respect for the individual and not just as a member of an organized group.” Cynicism and disregard for truth will spread. Tribal sentiment and government propaganda will replace rational discussion. Hayek would not have been surprised if foreigners, immigrants, and pet-eating Haitians were among the scapegoats.
Kakistocracy is a very derogatory word etymologically. Kakistos is the superlative of kakos (κακός), meaning evil or evil. For example, dissonance means an unpleasant sound. The neuter plural of kakos is kaka (κακά), meaning bad. The French baby word “caca”, meaning “pou-pou”, comes from its Greek or Latin derivatives. It has been part of the French language since the 16th century. We understand that this word has the same meaning in American English (“****”) and Spanish.
From the political economy perspective we are interested in here, kakitocracy is bad for everyone outside of kakitocracy.
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Behind the Scenes: I instructed Darui to create an image “representing the three members of the democratic kakistocracy.” The bot rejected the concept as “not consistent with our content policy.” He just agrees to represent a democratic kakistocracy that, as I told him, “makes your content policy illegal.” The second image below is one of two he created for that case. But the worst image I ended up getting to illustrate this post was when I asked him to “represent the three members of the populist kakistocracy.” Changing “democracy” to “populist” also worked for his content policy! This is the first one just below. DALL-E explained, “This is a generated image representing three members of a hypothetical populist kakistocracy.” AI bots are not Einsteins or great social theorists.
“Three members of a fictional populist kakistocracy” by DALL-E
Darui’s views on democratic kakistocracy that outlaws “content policy”
