"First-rate people hire first-rate people; second-rate people hire third-rate people." — Leo Rosten. This sentence does not describe an isolated case. It describes a mechanism — a law that operates in every hierarchy, in every age, in every culture. And it is the key to understanding the Megamachine: not as an evil plan, but as an emergent system that systematically expels excellence and systematically rewards mediocrity.
Generation 2: First-rate → but one is second-rate
Generation 3: The second-rate one rises → hires third-rate people
Generation 4: Third-rate → hires fourth-rate people
Generation 5: The system no longer functions
↻ Ratchet effect — quality can only fall, never rise
I. Feudalism — the first degeneration
The first feudal lords were warriors. Men who could fight, conquered land, defended it. They were first-rate in a very specific sense: they could do something others could not. Charlemagne learned to read only late — but he could hold an empire together, lead armies, forge alliances.
Then came inheritance. The sons inherited the position, not the ability. The grandsons knew only the court. Ibn Khaldun, the Arab historian of the 14th century, formulated the law: dynasties last four generations. The first generation conquers. The second consolidates. The third enjoys. The fourth loses. That is the ratchet effect in slow motion.
II. The aristocracy — institutionalised mediocrity
In the High Middle Ages the nobility became an institution. Inheritance became a system. The accident of birth replaced selection by ability. The aristocracy developed protective mechanisms against its own degeneration — education, marriage policy, a code of honour — but education cannot replace talent. It can polish a mediocre person, not transform him.
"The nobility is an institution that serves to preserve the memory of people who would put their descendants to shame if these still remembered them." — Chamfort
III. The bourgeoisie and the managerial class — the second and third degeneration
The bourgeois revolutions promised the end of hereditary hierarchy. Not birth but achievement was to count. The idea was right. The implementation was a deception: one aristocracy was replaced by another. Instead of landed property: capital. Instead of titles of nobility: company names. The founding generation — Krupp, Siemens, Bosch — were first-rate in a new sense. The heirs inherited the companies, not the abilities.
In the 20th century ownership separated from management. The manager was supposed to be the solution — professional leadership instead of inherited incompetence. It became the opposite. The manager is obliged to no one but his own career. He stays five years, optimises for his term of office. Who becomes a manager? Not the most capable — the most conformist. The one who makes no enemies. The one who looks good in meetings. Excellence is suspect. It disturbs. It asks questions. Mediocrity is safe. The ratchet effect accelerates: no longer four generations — four levels of management are enough.
IV. Bureaucracy — the fourth and completed degeneration
Max Weber saw bureaucracy as progress: rational authority instead of traditional. Rules instead of arbitrariness. He was wrong. Bureaucracy is not the end of degeneration. It is its completion. In it the ratchet effect is raised to a principle: seniority rather than ability determines advancement. The doctorate replaces competence. Risk minimisation replaces decision. Innovation is risk — so no innovation.
"In a hierarchy every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence." — Laurence J. Peter, The Peter Principle (1969)
The Peter Principle describes the final stage: an organisation in which every position is held by someone who is not qualified for it — who was competent at the previous level and was promoted until he no longer was. This connects directly with the bureaucracy paper in this series: the apparatus cannot produce anything that essentially contradicts it — because it is run by people who did not gain their position through excellence but through conformity.
V. Germany 2026 — the final stage
What we observe in Germany today is no accident. It is the logical result of four superimposed degenerations that operate simultaneously and reinforce one another: remnants of feudalism in old family firms that have been run by heirs for generations. Bourgeois stagnation in industries resting on the successes of the 19th century. Manager's disease in corporations where careerists promote careerists. Bureaucratic paralysis in the state, where the Peter Principle has become Staatsräson (reason of state).
Anyone who wants to succeed in this system must learn: not to stand out, not to contradict, not to be better than the boss, not to be right too early. The first-rate leave — abroad, into self-employment, into inner emigration. What remains is, according to Rosten's law, third-rate. That is the buffered zone of the Megamachine seen from within: not corruption, but structural selection against excellence.
VI. Is there a way out?
Historically there have been only two mechanisms that interrupted the ratchet effect. Catastrophes — wars, revolutions, collapses — sweep away the degenerate elites. New first-rate people rise. The cycle begins again. That is expensive. Not something one can choose.
Parallel structures — new hierarchies arise alongside the old ones, attract the first-rate people who have no chance in the old system, grow and eventually replace the old. That is the principle of Mondragón. That is the principle of Silicon Valley. That is — perhaps — a way out. The old hierarchies defend their sinecures with money, laws and power. But weeds grow in the cracks between the paving stones. They are not planned, not promoted, not wanted. But they grow.
"The old is dying and the new cannot be born; in this interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms appear." — Antonio Gramsci. The question is not how to change the law. The question is where the first-rate people go.