The Twenty-First Century “Ineptocracy” of America

by | Jun 18, 2012

I ran across a t-shirt that says everything about the state of our country today: Ineptocracy: A system of government where the least capable to lead are elected by the least capable of producing, and where the members of society least likely to sustain themselves or succeed, are rewarded with goods and services paid for […]

I ran across a t-shirt that says everything about the state of our country today:

Ineptocracy: A system of government where the least capable to lead are elected by the least capable of producing, and where the members of society least likely to sustain themselves or succeed, are rewarded with goods and services paid for by the confiscated wealth of a diminishing number of producers.

It’s not sarcasm or exaggeration to say all this. Every word of it is true.

Witness the spectacle of Barack Obama and his court jester, Joe Biden, heading a government which is supposed to create jobs and bring a dying economy back to life. How? By literally stealing trillions of dollars from that private economy, most of it in future debt, and moving it from the productive sphere to the government sphere.

How can a third of Americans assume this is the way it works, while another third feel it might?

In concrete, day-to-day reality nobody would ever expect it to work this way. You wouldn’t say, “I’m going to hire a nitwit to take a gun, hold it to a productive person’s head, force that productive person to go to work and then pay me his salary.” Even the people who support the nitwits in high office would never dream of attempting this on a real level. Somehow, when we cloak it in “democracy” and the faux-sophistication of Big Government, it’s suddenly supposed to be economic and moral to do this.

They wonder why it hasn’t worked. They wonder why, even if we ignore data suggesting the unemployment rate is higher than claimed, the economy continues to sputter and go splat.

They insist it’s a partisan issue. “We tried Bush’s way. His capitalism got us into this mess.”

No such thing is true.

Bush’s way was simply a different version of Obama’s way. Bush inherited and maintained, even expanded, Big Government. He lowered taxes a little, only temporarily. However, under his watch federal regulations went up, not down—just as they always do. Under his watch, government committed trillions more of future dollars into the Medicare prescription drug program. Under Bush’s watch, the federal government expanded its role, and spent billions more, on socialized education, popularly and fondly known as public schools. Under Bush’s watch, the federal government continued the policy of the liberal Democratic Clinton Administration, to use government manipulation and regulation of the marketplace to ensure that everybody got an easy mortgage—ultimately leading to the mortgage industry’s collapse, when those mortgages could not be paid back.

Bush’s policies were those of capitalism? I don’t think so. Capitalism is a system in which government stays completely out of the economy, except in instances of criminals initiating force, fraud, or violations of legally binding contracts. We haven’t had anything close to that for a very long time, and in some respects never totally had it. Capitalism has never been given a chance, while socialism is tried over, and over, and over again — each time with a different name — and people, like the fools they elect, keep expecting different results.

If they want to blame Bush for a lot of this, they should. But they should do so for the right reasons. Blaming Bush’s “capitalism” for our disaster is ridiculous. The only thing Bush did in the direction of capitalism was to make income taxes slightly lower than they had been under Clinton. This isn’t capitalism.

The problem is deeper and wider than Bush or Clinton, Republican or Democrat. The problem is that our federal government is, and for a long time has been, at war with production. To be at war with production, you have to be at war with the productive.

People like Bush and Clinton are less willing to admit this than Obama.

Obama outright declares class warfare. He’s open and unapologetic about it. He says, in essence, “Some people make too much money. It’s THEIR fault that you suffer.” He has created such a bad situation in this country psychologically that production finds itself both unwilling, and unable, to really soar again.

In a subtle way, capital in America has gone “on strike,” as it did in Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged in a more literal way. American businesses have for the most part stopped expanding. They’re scared to death of what the inept politicians are going to do to them next. And on a daily basis the President and Vice President hammer away at how evil they are.

Why should they take any risks? The nitwits in high office are going to take it all, if they do make a billion — and call them moral creeps for having accomplished something great.

People ought to be smart enough to understand that the success of another is NOT an attack on you. If your life is impoverished today, it’s not because somebody else has done well. You can set a well-off person’s big house on fire, and if you were living in a slum before, you’re still living in a slum now. The well-being of one has no cause-and-effect relationship with the lesser well-being of another.

Politicians and others who tell you that you should hate others for their success are actually hurting you, not helping you. They are appealing to the worst within you. They are hoping that you’re weak enough to want to blame others for your (real or alleged) misfortune instead of being strong enough to stand up and take care of yourself.

This isn’t leadership. It’s manipulative and destructive.

When you place power in the hands of inept idiots, then you foster the rule of “ineptocracy.” You give power to the least capable and the least deserving. In the process, you may wonder why there is less and less in society to admire and enjoy. It’s because the idiots given the power they never deserved are not capable of producing anything.

If you want to live in a society which constantly improves, and the standards of living are better from one generation to the next, then you ought to be in favor of wealth being in private hands—not government hands. The socialists and Marxists who run just about everything in our society have taught you just the opposite. And look where it got us.

Dr. Michael Hurd is a psychotherapist, columnist and author of "Bad Therapy, Good Therapy (And How to Tell the Difference)" and "Grow Up America!" Visit his website at: www.DrHurd.com.

The views expressed above represent those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of the editors and publishers of Capitalism Magazine. Capitalism Magazine sometimes publishes articles we disagree with because we think the article provides information, or a contrasting point of view, that may be of value to our readers.

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