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  • Peter Critchley

Technocrats are Incompetents

Technocrats are Incompetents

Recent years have seen a systematic erosion of democracy and constant denigration of democratic governance. Underlying this deliberate undermining of democracy is a poor view of the moral and intellectual capacities of the individual members of the demos. 'That's the problem with democracy,' I once heard a Green former associate claim, 'not enough people know stuff.' The presumption being, of course, that he and his ilk know better.


If 'knowing stuff' is the problem then there are two solutions, the one long-term, the other short-term:

1) create a habitus in which it is possible for people to once more know, acquire, internalize, and exercise the moral and intellectual virtues;

2) discard democracy and put the bureaucrats of knowledge and power in charge.


People who make the claim to 'know stuff' have little regard for people who don't, which means they have little regard for people. You don't have to look far to see claims that people are stupid. They quote George Carlin to ask us to consider how stupid the average person is, and then realize that most people are even more stupid than that. The discarding of democracy follows this anthropological pessimism. It should also cause you to ponder how such people would treat the 'average person' and all who fall below even that standard should they wield power. Not very well, I would suggest.


I pointed out to one of the superior types quoting George Carlin that 'the average person' has 1.9 legs. Being so clever, I felt they would work the meaning out. They didn't. Of course they didn't. For the reason that those who claim to be the most knowledgeable and competent tend to know little of the complicated human stuff, making them thoroughly inept in politics. Technocrats are incompetents. They have zero understanding of practical reason, rendering their plans disastrously and expensively impractical.


One thing is clear: as we survey the record of technocrats taking the place of politicians: for all of the claims to competence, these people are utterly incompetent, limping from one bad decision to another and leaving a trail of disaster behind them. You can start with Blair if you like, but recent years offer sufficient evidence of the political stupidity of the technocrats, the people who are still insisting that Covid Lockdown was a success and a good template to follow for a climate lockdown, the people hankering after 'green' (digital/central) banking, social credit systems, the centralisation of command and control in the hands of people like them. Looking at Trudeau, Adern, Macron, and now Sunak, it's little wonder that such people seek to bring the curtain down on democracy and politics – they are incompetents who can't bear the scrutiny. Say it loud and clear, the technocrats are inept – and inhuman to boot; they should be nowhere near power and decision-making.


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