In this timeless classic, Émile Faguet delivers a brilliant critique of democracy and its elevation of the average. The Cult of Incompetence argues that where equality reigns, competence and wisdom perish.

Faguet dissects how modern mass government—for all its ideals—ends up venerating the low and empowering the inept. He paints a compelling portrait of parliaments churning out frivolous laws, officials chosen for loyalty over skill, and a society cheerfully sinking into a self-inflicted mediocrity.

Reading The Cult of Incompetence today, one is struck by how many of Faguet’s observations anticipate ongoing issues in liberal democracies. In the current year, when social media discourse treats progressive apologia as equal to timeless wisdom, the “cult of incompetence” perhaps has metastasized in ways Faguet could only imagine. At once provocative and erudite, this reactionary masterpiece champions the old-world virtues of knowledge, hierarchy, and earned authority.