Mediocre Mad Max

Great Britain suffers from a common law system called “primogeniture” wherein the first-born male in each family inherited the entire estate of the father. This had the effect of keeping large estates intact and preventing them from being scattered to the wind.

It also insulated first-born males as political fixtures. That system still survives in the British House of Lords, and with succession to the throne. It has given us Prince Charles in all his Tampon-seeking glory.

Since genes don’t transmit intact, and since much of what we call “talent” is developed in reaction to environment, a system that awards leadership to inherited wealth will probably yield mediocre leadership. We’ve seen it in this country with rule by Kennedy’s and Bush’s, and in this state with a senator who seems to believe he has some sort of entitlement to office, Max Baucus.

Baucus is mediocre at best. What ever convinced him that he was cut out to lead? Likely it was a family background (his middle name is “Sieben”, like that large land and sheep operation near Helena), and access to the best schools.

People trained at Stanford often go on to leadership and great accomplishments. But what happens when we bestow the best available education on the mediocre thinker, the uninspired leader who thinks he’s entitled to lead anyway? (There’s a problem with people who lack depth – they don’t have the depth to know that they lack depth.)

With George W. Bush, we sank into preventive war, special tax treatment of wealth, decay of infrastructure and privatization of government services.

With Senator Max Baucus, we have … well, not much. He’s never really led the floor on any issue, never inspired his fellows in the Senate. His public speaking is rambling and incoherent, and his impulse has always been to serve wealth.

Typical of an aristocrat, he seems to beleive that some sort of legacy mission had fallen on him, and cloaked in his purple robe, he has taken on the health care issue for all of us. But, typical of an aristocrat, he has no sense of the problems faced by ordinary people, and has restricted himself to back room dealings with insurance and pharmaceutical company representatives. In a move bespeaking pure arrogance and tone-deaf political skills, he held Potemkin-like “hearings” on health care solutions, and when single payer proponents tried to insert themselves, had them arrested.

Right in the middle of all of this, he also held “Camp Baucus”, a golf/fishing schmoozer for his wealthy and influential backers. Seeing a potential for confrontation with the untouchables, he opted not to attend.

Leadership by entitlement usually produces mediocrity. Occasionally in baseball we will see the genes of one player passed on to his son, as with Ken Griffey, Jr., Prince Fielder or Barry Bonds. But that’s the exception – most often we see regression to the mean, as with Pete Rose, Jr.

It is better for the nation as a whole to break up large estates, to allow new blood to enter the best schools, to keep the Dubya’s and Max’s of this world in low-level positions where they do minimal damage. Money will always bestow privilege, but should not automatically convey the right to lead.

Footenote: Perhaps Max’s worthwhile legacy will be that in 2005 he fought against privatization of Social Security. Credit where credit is due.