Every year in December, The Economist finds a ‘word of the year’ that summarizes an important event or trend and has gained popularity in its wake.
It is useful to know that the magazine has resisted populism as it emerged in the United States and elsewhere in the world, but, I would argue, not always in a consistent way. The real problem is not right and left, but the preference for collective choices over individual choices that characterizes both parties. (There are, however, some encouraging signs that the prestigious journal is moving toward its 19th-century classical liberal roots.)
The Economist‘s word for 2024 is “kakistocracy”, the rule of the worst, from ancient Greek kakistos (κάκιστος) for “the worst” and of course kratia (κρατία) for ‘dominion’ or ‘power’. Unlike, say, “aristocracy,” the derivative “kakistocrat,” for the worst of the people who govern, has not taken root, but we can hope that it will. The 2024 Word of the Year would remain highly relevant even if Ms. Harris had been elected in Mr. Trump’s place. It is also relevant in many other countries.
In his 1944 book The road to serfdom, Fredrich Hayek, the Nobel laureate for future economics, foresaw that as the state rose to power, the worst people would become rulers, whether it was a single dictator adored by the majority or an all-powerful democratic majority. The regime would be supported by people with the lowest moral and intellectual standards and by the most gullible. They would embrace the principle that the end justifies the means and unite against scapegoating. People would lose any ‘respect for the individual as a human being, rather than merely as a member of an organized group’. Cynicism and contempt for the truth would spread. Tribal emotions and government propaganda would crowd out rational arguments. Hayek would not have been surprised if foreigners, immigrants and pet eating Haitians were among the scapegoats.
Kakistocracy is etymologically a very pejorative term. Kakistos is the superlative of kakos (κακός), meaning bad or bad. For example, cacophony means unpleasant sounds. The plural neutral of kakos is kaka (κακά) and means bad things. The French baby talk “cocoa”, meaning “pou-pou” came from that Greek word or a Latin derivative. It has been part of the French language since the 16th century. I understand that, in American English (“****”) and in Spanishthe word has the same meaning.
From the political-economic point of view, which interests us here, the kakistocracy is bad for everyone except the kakistocrats.
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Behind the scenes: I commissioned DALL-E to create an image “representing three members of a democratic kakistocracy.” The bot declined, saying this concept was “not in line with our content policies.” He would only agree to represent a democratic kakistocracy which, as I told him, would “make your content policy illegal”! The second image below is one of two he made for that case. But the least bad image I ended up with to illustrate this post was when I asked him for an image “representing three members of a populist kakistocracy.” Changing ‘democratic’ to ‘populist’ also worked for his content policy! This is the first one just below. DALL-E explained: “Here is the generated image depicting three members of a fictional populist kakistocracy.” AI bots are neither Einsteins nor great social theorists.
“Three Members of a Fictional Populist Kakistocracy,” by DALL-E
DALL-E’s vision of a democratic kakistocracy that would ban its ‘content policy’