kakistocracy
Definition from Wiktionary, the free dictionary
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[edit] English
[edit] Etymology
Ancient Greek κακιστος (kakistos, “worst”), superlative of κακος (kakos, “bad”) + -κρατια (-kratia, “power, rule, government”).
[edit] Pronunciation
- IPA: /kækɪsˈtɑkɹəsi/
[edit] Noun
kakistocracy (plural kakistocracies)
- Government under the control of a nation's worst or least-qualified citizens.
- 1894, James Russell Lowell, Letters of James Russell Lowell - To Joel Benton [1876], p.159:
- Is ours a "government of the people, by the people, for the people," or a kakistocracy rather, for the benefit of knaves at the cost of fools?
- 1999, Gang Deng, The Premodern Chinese Economy: Structural Equilibrium and Capitalist Sterility:
- Thus, the problem was not whether corruption/power abuse was allowed, but how to keep a balance between uprightness and kakistocracy.
- 2000, Tom H. Hastings, Ecology of War and Peace: Counting the Cost of Conflict:
- Some nation-states have suffered what the Greeks called kakistocracy—government by the worst of men. International law can, in theory if not always in practice, keep these kakistocracies from damaging too much.
- 1894, James Russell Lowell, Letters of James Russell Lowell - To Joel Benton [1876], p.159:
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