That disturbing feeling of - partially - agreeing with Moira Donegan

Not that we’d like to make a habit of this but something we at least partially agree with in one of Moira Donegan’s columns in the Guardian:

Ageing is not a moral failure: if we’re lucky, all of us will do it. But a man who is too old to suffer a fall in his home without needing a month-long hospital stay away from his office is not a man who is capable of being among the 100 most powerful people in our government. What is offensive about the gerontocracy is how transparently it reveals the rot at the core of the American political system, how plainly it demonstrates that our elected leaders do not serve the people, but serve only their own gratification, only their own power.

Donegan then goes on to hope for better politicians which is where the disagreement starts.

Note that we do not say that there is a rot, a gerontocracy, rather that if there is then what should be done about it? Ms. Donegan’s answer is, as we say, to hope for, call for, better politicians. Which is not how we think this can possibly work out.

If we set up a system in which people can have power over others then the system will become populated, taken over, by those who desire that power over others. Having gained office they will cling to it - that power over others is the aim, purpose and, to a certain type, most enjoyable. Hoping that such offices might be occupied by those not interested in directing the lives of others isn’t going to work out.

Thus the only viable solution is to reducing the power of such offices over others. Gut, gralloch, politics of power over the rest of us and watch the power hungry not bother.

Minarchy, it’s the only language these politicians understand, d’ye see?

Tim Worstall