Free The Peter Principle by Laurence Peter

statesmen to represent them at the capital. That is, indeed, the simplified theory of representative government. In reality, the process is somewhat more complicated.
    Present-day politics is dominated by the party system. Some countries have only one official party; some have two; some have several. A political party is usually naïvely pictured as a group of like-minded people co-operating to further their common interests. This is no longer valid. That function is now carried on entirely by the lobby, and there are as many lobbies as there are special interests.
    A political party now exists primarily as an apparatus for selecting candidates and getting them elected to office.
    A Dying Breed
    To be sure, one occasionally sees an “independent” candidate get elected by his own efforts, without party endorsement. But the enormous expense of political campaigning makes this phenomenon rare enough at the local and regional levels, and unknown in national elections. It is fair to say that parties dominate the selection of candidates in modern politics.
    The Party Hierarchy
    Each political party, as any member knows, is a hierarchy. Admittedly, most members work for nothing, even pay for the privilege, but there is nevertheless a well-marked structure of ranks and a definite system of promotion from rank to rank.
    I have so far shown the Peter Principle in its application to paid workers. You will see now that it is valid in this type of hierarchy, too.
    In a political party, as in a factory or an army, competence in one rank is a requisite for promotion to the next. A competent door-to-door canvasser becomes eligible for promotion; he may be allowed to organize a team of canvassers. The ineffective or obnoxious canvasser continues knocking on doors, alienating voters.
    A fast envelope stuffer may expect to become captain of an envelope-stuffing team; an incompetent envelope stuffer will remain, slowly and awkwardly stuffing envelopes, putting two leaflets in some, none in others, folding the leaflets wrongly, dropping them on the floor, and so on, as long as he stays with the party.
    A competent fund raiser may be promoted to the committee which nominates the candidate. Although he was a good beggar, he may not be a competent judge of men as lawmakers and may support an incompetent candidate.
    Even if a majority of the nominating committee consists of competent judges of men, it will select the candidate, not for his potential wisdom as a legislator, but on his presumed ability to win elections!
    The Big Step: Candidate to Legislator
    In bygone days, when great public meetings decided the results of elections, and when public speaking was a high art, a spellbinding orator might hope for nomination by a party, and the best orator among the candidates might win the seat. But of course the ability to charm, to amuse, to inflame a crowd of ten thousand voters with voice and gesture did not necessarily carry with it the ability to think sensibly, to debate soberly and to vote wisely on the nation’s business.
    With the development of electronic campaigning a party may give its nomination to the man who looks best on TV. But the ability to impress—with the aid of makeup and lighting—an attractive image on a fluorescent screen is no guarantee of competent performance in the legislature.
    Many a man, under the old and the new systems, has made the upward step from candidate to legislator, only to achieve his level of incompetence.
    Incompetence in the Legislature
    The legislature itself is a hierarchy. An elected representative who proves incompetent as a rank-and-file member will obtain no promotion.
    But a competent rank-and-file legislator is eligible for promotion to a position of greater power—member of an important committee, committee chairman or, under some systems, cabinet minister. At any of these ranks, too, the promotee may be incompetent.
    So we see that the Peter Principle controls the entire legislative arm of