"The Peter Principle" Is Alive And Well Across The World

Have We Hit Our Level Of Incompetence?

The Peter principle is a concept in management theory formulated by Laurence J. Peter in which the selection of a candidate for a position is based on the candidate's performance in their current role, rather than on abilities relevant to the intended role. Thus, employees only stop being promoted once they can no longer perform effectively, and "managers rise to the level of their incompetence." In short, this creates a situation where a seemingly intelligent person can also be very incompetent. 

 

To an advanced species examining Earth, the search for intelligent life might not be as easy as we think.

While humans sport some of the traits attributed to intelligence they also tend to have a short-sighted view of the future that results in them continually shooting themselves in the foot. This brings into question man's ability to reach the next level. Near the beginning of 2014, I penned a piece questioning how so many people were able to think the world's surging population would not become a problem because of new energy sources. Even more puzzling is the notion we could just unload huge numbers of people to distant planets. While such faith can be sighted as a beacon of inspiration it hardly is justification for mankind to rapidly move towards the point of no return thinking everything will be fine.

Man Tends To Destroy What He Creates

Anyone with even the slightest mechanical knowledge will tell you that solar panels, windmills, and such take a lot of energy to build and often are maintenance intense. Both these complicated systems have a short lifespan and require a great deal of energy to be expended in just keeping them up and running. This includes all the BTUs being burned in producing parts that need to be constantly replaced. This was one of my arguments years ago when I expressed concern the optimism surrounding ethanol was being over-hyped.

When you do not create enough "net gain" in energy from the total energy produced minus energy expended to produce it, you have a problem. If we cannot claim a major victory in resolving our energy problem, the energy we produce in the future will very likely be very expensive. If so, that cost will slow economic growth and remove much of the plentiful bounty we have come to expect and have enjoyed during what I call man's "golden age" or roughly the last 200 years.

Carry no illusions the days of cheap energy are behind us and not only has the low-hanging fruit been picked it has been eaten. Sadly, if we look back we will see much of this energy was allowed to go to waste. America has adopted the same attitude towards its buildings. In our fast-changing world, we have made everything disposable.  A remove and replace mentality tends not to maximize gains or resources and creates a huge amount of waste. Often there is no way to reclaim much of this and even recycling is inefficient. This acceptable lifestyle and way of doing business has extended down to the point where most consumer goods are now unrepairable. With fast growth, we often see a lack of quality. I contend this is about to catch up with modern society. 

We are currently seeing a "go green" answer to our problems being promoted not only by governments but the major Central Banks. Sadly, many of the proposed solutions to our woes are based on what appears to be pie-in-the-sky visions that make little sense. One thing that would help is simply conserving our resources and cutting down on waste but this idea has been thrown under the bus and to speak of it is taboo. It is absent from consideration because it would cut GDP. For example, energy use soars during extremely hot or cold months adding to overall consumption.

Mankind Has Failed To Plan For Sustainability

When we look at fast-growing cities where we see buildings erected and ripped down and replaced after only two or three decades we should ask if this is sustainable or our best use of resources. The reasoning behind remove and replace is often that it is far less expensive to just rip it down than to repair or upgrade a structure with labor being the determining factor. Ironically, this is in a world where the number of people in many developed countries choosing to work is declining and those being supported by government programs have risen dramatically.

As the noose of reality and finite resources begins to tighten around the neck of mankind do not expect to hear those in charge to scream out warnings from the rooftops. The few mutterings we hear will be from people tagged as "gloom and doomers" who only see the glass as half empty and are incapable of seeing it as really half full. When we approach the tipping point promises of easier, cheaper, and ever better ways of postponing the inevitable will prove to be an illusion. This means new problems will begin to materialize on a daily basis and the reality our options are evaporating will be both abrupt and harsh. As I ponder our fate is it possible the collective human race is also governed by the "Peter principle" and if so, how will humanity escape this trap?

The Destroyed City Of Mosul

An example of man's collective incompetence arose a few years ago with the clumsy destruction of Mosul in northern Iraq. Much of the world chose to ignore what happened there when a coalition of anti-ISIS forces retaking Mosul rapidly reduced the proud city to rubble. Upon seeing the pictures of the city in ruins it is not difficult to imagine 100,000 or more of the innocent people trapped within the city killed as troops seeking to eradicate some four to six thousand ISIS fighters went about their task. Little praise can be shed upon those who allowed and enabled a few extremists to take their weapons from them and then wreak havoc upon this peaceful city.

Taliban Show Off Their New Weapons

A more recent example of collective incompetence is how America's government left tens of billions of dollars worth of usable US military hardware and explosives in the hands of the Taliban, ISIS, and Al-Qaeda.  These are militant Sunni Islamist multi-national organizations, we are talking about people most of us view as America-hating terrorists. Couple this with America's surging national deficit and it appears we are looking at a country gone mad. Even more ironic is that much of the money created from deficit spending is flowing directly to China, a country America now views as its rival, to buy poor quality consumer goods. 

As previously mentioned, the Peter Principle is based on the notion that employees will get promoted as long as they are competent, but at some point will fail to get promoted beyond a certain job because it has become too challenging for them. Employees rise to their level of incompetence and stay there. The question here is whether mankind will be halted by the same dilemma. When we look at world leaders such as Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, it is easy to argue the Peter Principle extends far into the political sector. 

One way to reconcile how an intelligent person can also come across as so incompetent is to consider their actions are compromised by corruption. Maybe it is time for someone to write a new best-seller titled; The Corruption Principle. It could be based on how as a person gains influence and power they become inclined to throw the rest of society under the bus for fun and profit.

I'm not saying that we should stop trying to move forward, but it would be wise to give the issue of creating a more sustainable future a bit more thought. This should be a priority because it appears we are already sowing the seeds for a less than compelling future? Thinking that we are immune to the rules governing the universe may prove a grave mistake. The morons and clowns that blessed us with Covid-19 and the way it has been handled are proof incompetence is not in short supply. 

Footnote; The following articles are related to the post above.

https://brucewilds.blogspot.com/2021/01/are-evs-good-for-environment-mostly-not.html   https://brucewilds.blogspot.com/2021/09/whats-happening-in-afghanistan-has-made.html https://brucewilds.blogspot.com/2020/06/the-importance-of-where-and-what.html 

 (Republishing of this article welcomed with reference to Bruce Wilds/AdvancingTime Blog)