DMB Pulp: I want poor leaders, not bad ones.

Who is to blame if not us?

The year 2018 was when reality finally settled in for me; many trusted professionals simply stink at the very thing for which we seek their expertise. I gotta admit, the realization was a bit traumatic. Certainly disillusioning.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m most definitely not anti-intellectual. We need experts with deep, functional knowledge across many specialty fields. But over and over, the people I’ve come across in leadership or power positions suddenly reveal themselves to be shockingly incompetent. How can this be?

As I wrestled with this discombobulating reality into the pandemic year, the answer eventually floated to the top like so much cream. In America, we equate wealth with competency, virility, and wisdom. If someone has a lot of money, that person must be good at making money. If someone is good at making money, that person must be smart, powerful, and effective.

Therefore rich people make excellent CEOs, elected officials, and all sorts of other professionals. Granted there is certainly a chicken-and-the-egg thing going on here. Some professionals amass wealth as a result of their profession. But the matter of which came first isn’t important. Wealth equals awesome-brainiac-hero.

This phony cultural facade began to crumble for me during the process of seeking venture capital for my startup. Repeatedly my business partner and I ran into wealthy know-nothing sorts who “put us in our place” by brandishing their ignorance of our market, our product, and our target audience. Eventually I came to realize the money-making business has no interest in making useful products or beneficial services. The people with all the money knew nothing about anything other than financial services, work arounds, investments, schemes, and other shady hacks which could result in making more money.

I came to recognize most successful CEOs were neccessarily sociopathic. Without the ability to strategically use and then discard other humans along the way to accomplishing their vision, many CEOs will fail to get to the top. And then the people who inherit these large companies often lack most of the skills and knowledge to lead.

But if someone is rich enough, we assume they know what they are doing. As a result, our society has grown dependent on ambitious dopes and unscrupulous weasels. Far too often, the people in power positions have no business wielding their power, and shame on us for assuming their competence based on their wealth.

It’s time we wise up. It’s quite likely that the richer you are the more psychologically broken you’ve become. Rich people lack many basic, human skills—especially relational ones. Wealthy and power hungry people are almost certainly compensating for a lacking of human connection that has negatively impacted their healthy emotional growth. As a result their behavior often becomes abusive, vindictive, spiteful, and ugly.

A final curious thing I’ve noticed is that when these rich, ambitious leaders lash out in the above manner, we find it endearing and desirable. Of course, we don’t find these behaviors endearing in our loved ones or close associates. That would be a nightmare. But in our leaders? It is for the best. Let them demean, belittle, and insult others for our benefit. Then when their time of useful service is over, we’ll put them down. (Or so goes the plan.) In reality, our society becomes increasing molded in the image of Mammon as we continually bow down to it.

If you want to start reading the Lost DMB Files…

[Click here for an introduction by Jim Buckner]

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