An illustration of the Peter Principle. Source: Wikimedia Commons. Public Domain.

Today at Public Discourse, I argue that in addition to idealism and self-interest, petence needs to be recognized as a more important factor in politics:

[U]nless we add petence as a category of analysis, we will tend to view every victory for our own team as a triumph of justice or freedom or equality (idealism), and every failure the result of deep and convoluted corruption (self-interest). This is not a productive approach or an accurate reflection of reality.

In particular, I draw upon the French literary critic Émile Faguet, who developed a theory of petence in democracy in his book The Cult of petence:

Faguet wrote, “That society . . . stands highest in the scale, where the division of labour is greatest, where specialisation is most definite, and where the distribution of functions according to efficiency is most thoroughly carried out.” But, according to Faguet, democracies are a form of government particularly ill-suited to such efficiency. petence is a failure of the division of labor, and democracies demand and seek out such failure.

How so? On the whole, a democracy is a group of people with no relevant qualifications or experience for government claiming political sovereignty for themselves. Rather than choosing the petent persons for any given public position, they often elect people who reflect their passions and prejudices, and those people appoint others who will further their political careers…. This is not exactly a formula petence.

Unlike democratic governments, however, Faguet acknowledged the private sector as a refuge of efficiency due to the feedback of the market. If a pany is petent at making tasty cookies, for example, it will quickly discover this when no one wants to buy the ones it makes. This will motivate it to adapt its recipe and baking methods to petently produce tasty cookies … or it will fail to be profitable and go out of business. Democratic governments don’t have this feedback mechanism.

That said, I note in my essay that “[t]o some degree, petence] is unavoidable in any form of government or organization. petence is learned, though different people have more natural aptitude at some skills than others.”

Indeed, in addition to what I say in my essay, while democratic governments are especially vulnerable to petence for the reasons Faguet details, all organizations have a tendency toward petence through what is known as the “Peter Principle.”

Put simply, the Peter Principle is the idea that the basis for a person’s promotion is petence in his/her current role. petence at being a salesman, for example, does not necessarily translate petence as a sales manager. Thus, organizations of all kinds, including governments, tend to push people into roles that they are petent to fulfill.

While this is by no means always the case — sometimes people turn down promotions; sometimes they turn out to be great at their new roles — the force of the principle is difficult to deny. petence is all around us and somewhat unavoidable.

To me, this should be a source of optimism — not be confused with confidence, but still. Knowing that petence is unavoidable, we can be think about how to harness it for good, just as the American founding fathers, for example, thought well about how to harness the self-interest of political actors for the good of the nation.

I can’t claim to have a detailed theory all worked out, but I end with a contrarian suggestion:

Democracy may maximize petence, but perhaps that isn’t always a bad thing. So long as we acknowledge its importance, perhaps we can further develop a theory of petence and learn to direct it toward mon good as well.

You can read the whole essay here.