Carlo M.

Cipolla

The Basic Laws

of Human Stupidity

il Mulino
ISBN 978-88-15-23381-3

Copyright © 2011 by Societa editrice il Mulino. Bologna.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be
reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any
form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing
of Societa editrice il Mulino. For further information see
www.mulino.it/edizioni/fotocopie
 Index

Publisher's Note p. 7

The Mad Millers to the Reader 9

Introduction 15

I. The First Basic Law 19

II. The Second Basic Law 23

III. A Technical Interlude 29

IV. The Third (and Golden) Basic Law 35

V. Frequency Distribution 41

VI. Stupidity and Power 47

VII. The Power of Stupidity 51

VIII. The Fourth Basic Law 55

IX. Macro Analysis and the

Fifth Basic Law 59

Appendix 67
 Publisher's Note

Originally written in English, The Basic

Laws of Human Stupidity was published for
the first time in 1976 in a numbered and
private edition bearing the unlikely imprint of
«Mad Millers».
The author believed that his short essay could
only be fully appreciated in the language in
which it had been written. He consequently long
declined any proposal to have it translated. Only
in 1988 did he accept the idea of its publication
in an Italian version as part of the volume en-
titled Allegro ma non troppo, together with the
essay Pepper, Wine (and Wool) as the Dynamic
Factors of the Social and Economic Development
of the Middle Ages, also originally written in
English and published privately by Mad Millers
for Christmas 1973.
Allegro ma non troppo has been a bestseller both
in Italy and in all the countries where translated
versions have appeared. Yet, with an irony that
the author of these laws would have appreciated,
it has never been published in the language in
which it was first written.

7
 Thus, almost a quarter of century since publica-
tion of Allegro ma non troppo, this in fact is the
first edition that makes The Basic Laws of Human
Stupidity available in its original version.
 The Mad Millers to the Reader

The private edition of 7976 was preceded by

the following publisher's note written by the au-
thor himself:

The Mad Millers printed only a limited number

of copies of this book which addresses itself not to
stupid people but to those who on occasion have to
deal with such people. To add that none of those
who will receive this book can possibly fall in area
S of the basic graph (figure 1) is therefore a work
of supererogation. Nevertheless, like most works of
supererogation, it is better done that left undone.
For, as the Chinese philosopher said: «Erudition
is the source of universal wisdom: but that does
not prevent it from being an occasional cause of
misunderstanding between friends ».

9
Introduction
H u m a n affairs are admittedly in a deplorable
state. This, however, is no novelty. As far back
as we can see, h u m a n affairs have always been in
a deplorable state. The heavy load of troubles and
miseries that h u m a n beings have to bear as indi-
viduals as well as members of organized societies
is basically a by-product of the most improbable
— and I would dare say, stupid — way in which
life was set up at its very inception.
After Darwin we know that we share our origin
with the lower members of the animal kingdom,
and worms as well as elephants have to bear their
daily share of trials, predicaments, and ordeals.
H u m a n beings, however, are privileged in so far
as they have to bear an extra load — an extra
dose of tribulations originated daily by a group
of people within the h u m a n race itself. This
group is much more powerful than the Mafia, or
the Military Industrial Complex, or International
Communism — it is an unorganized unchartered
group which has no chief, no president, no by-laws
and yet manages to operate in perfect unison, as
if guided by an invisible hand, in such a way that

15
the activity of each member powerfully contributes
to strengthen and amplify the effectiveness of the
activity of all other members. The nature, character
and behaviour of the members of this group are
the subject of the following pages.
Let me point out at this juncture that most
emphatically this little book is neither a product of
cynicism nor an exercise in defeatism — no more
than a book on microbiology. The following pages
are in fact the result of a constructive effort to
detect, know and thus possibly neutralize one of
the most powerful, dark forces which hinder the
growth of h u m a n welfare and happiness.

16
 Chapter I

The First Basic Law

T he First Basic Law of H u m a n Stupidity asserts
without ambiguity that

« Always and inevitably everyone under-

estimates the number of stupid individuals
in circulation* 1 .

At first, the statement sounds trivial, vague

and horribly ungenerous. Closer scrutiny will
however reveal its realistic veracity. No matter
how high are one's estimates of h u m a n stupidity,
one is repeatedly and recurrently startled by the
fact that:
a) People whom one had once judged rational
and intelligent turn out to be unashamedly stupid.
6) Day after day, with unceasing monotony,
one is harassed in one's activities by stupid indi-

1
The compilers of the Testament were aware of the
First Basic Law and they paraphrased it when they asserted
that «stultorum infinitus est numerus» but they indulged in
poetic exaggeration. The number of stupid people cannot be
infinite because the number of living people is finite.

19
viduals who appear suddenly and unexpectedly
in the most inconvenient places and at the most
improbable moments.
The First Basic Law prevents me from attrib-
uting a specific numerical value to the fraction
of stupid people within the total population: any
numerical estimate would turn out to be an under-
estimate. Thus in the following pages I will denote
the fraction of stupid people within a population
by the symbol a.

20
 Chapter II

The Second Basic Law

C ultural trends now fashionable in the West
favour an egalitarian approach to life. People
like to think of h u m a n beings as the output of a
perfectly engineered mass production machine.
Geneticists and sociologists especially go out of
their way to prove, with an impressive apparatus
of scientific data and formulations that all men
are naturally equal and if some are more equal
than the others, this is attributable to nurture and
not to nature.
I take an exception to this general view. It is
my firm conviction, supported by years of ob-
servation and experimentation, that men are not
equal, that some are stupid and others are not,
and that the difference is determined by nature
and not by cultural forces or factors. One is stupid
in the same way one is red-haired; one belongs
to the stupid set as one belongs to a blood group.
A stupid m a n is born a stupid m a n by an act of
Providence.
Although convinced that fraction a of h u m a n
beings are stupid and that they are so because

23
of genetic traits, I am not a reactionary trying
to reintroduce surreptitiously class or race dis-
crimination. I firmly believe that stupidity is an
indiscriminate privilege of all h u m a n groups and
is uniformly distributed according to a constant
proportion. This fact is scientifically expressed by
the Second Basic Law which states that

«The probability that a certain person

be stupid is independent of any other
characteristic of that person».

In this regard, Nature seems indeed to have

outdone herself. It is well known that Nature
manages, rather mysteriously, to keep constant
the relative frequency of certain natural phe-
nomena. For instance, whether men proliferate
at the Northern Pole or at the Equator, whether
the matching couples are developed or underde-
veloped, whether they are black, red, white or
yellow the female to male ratio among the newly
born is a constant, with a very slight prevalence
of males. We do not know how Nature achieves
this remarkable result but we know that in or-
der to achieve it Nature must operate with large
numbers. The most remarkable fact about the
frequency of stupidity is that Nature succeeds in
making this frequency equal to the probability a
quite independently from the size of the group.
Thus one finds the same percentage of stupid peo-
ple whether one is considering very large groups
or one is dealing with very small ones. No other

24
set of observable phenomena offers such striking
proof of the powers of Nature.
The evidence that education has nothing to do
with the probability a was provided by experiments
carried on in a large number of universities all
over the world. One may distinguish the composite
population which constitutes a university in five
major groups, namely the blue-collar workers, the
white-collar employees, the students, the admin-
istrators and the professors.
Whenever I analyzed the blue-collar workers I
found that the fraction a of them were stupid. As
a\ value was higher than I expected (First Law),
paying my tribute to fashion I thought at first
that segregation, poverty, lack of education were
to be blamed. But moving up the social ladder I
found that the same ratio was prevalent among the
white-collar employees and among the students.
More impressive still were the results among the
professors. Whether I considered a large univer-
sity or a small college, a famous institution or an
obscure one, I found that the same fraction a of
the professors are stupid. So bewildered was I by
the results, that I made a special point to extend
my research to a specially selected group, to a real
elite, the Nobel laureates. The result confirmed
Nature's supreme powers: a fraction of the Nobel
laureates are stupid.
This idea was hard to accept and digest but too
many experimental results proved its fundamental
veracity. The Second Basic Law is an iron law, and it
does not admit exceptions. The Women's Liberation

25
Movement will support the Second Basic Law as
it shows that stupid individuals are proportionally
as numerous among men as among women. The
underdeveloped of the Third World will probably
take solace at the Second Basic Law as they can
find in it the proof that after all the developed
are not so developed. Whether the Second Basic
Law is liked or not, however, its implications are
frightening: the Law implies that whether you
move in distinguished circles or you take refuge
among the head-hunters of Polynesia, whether you
lock yourself into a monastery or decide to spend
the rest of your life in the company of beautiful
and lascivious women, you always have to face
the same percentage of stupid people — which
percentage (in accordance with the First Law)
will alwTays surpass your expectations.

26
 Chapter III

A Technical Interlude
A t this point it is imperative to elucidate the
L. concept of h u m a n stupidity and to define the
dramatis persona.
Individuals are characterized by different
degrees of propensity to socialize. There are
individuals for whom any contact with other
individuals is a painful necessity. They literally
have to put up with people and people have to
put up with them. At the other extreme of the
spectrum there are individuals who absolutely
cannot live by themselves and are even ready to
spend time in the company of people whom they
do not really like rather than to be alone. Between
these two extremes, there is an extreme variety of
conditions, although by far the greatest majority
of the people are closer to the type who cannot
face loneliness than to the type who has no taste
for h u m a n intercourse. Aristotiles recognized this
fact when he wrote that «Man is a social animal»
and the validity of his statement is demonstrated
by the fact that we move in social groups, that
there are more married people than bachelors and

29
spinsters, that so much wealth and time is wasted
in fatiguing and boring cocktail parties and that
the word loneliness carries normally a negative
connotation.
Whether one belongs to the hermit or to the
socialite type, one deals with people although with
different intensity. Even the hermits occasionally
meet people. Moreover, one affects human beings
also by avoiding them. What I could have done
for an individual or a group but did not do is an
opportunity-cost (i.e. a lost gain or loss) for that
particular person or group. The moral of the story
is that each one of us has a current balance with
everybody else. From action or inaction each one
of us derives a gain or a loss and at the same
time one causes a gain or a loss to some one else.
Gains and losses can be conveniently charted on
a graph, and figure 1 shows the basic graph to be
used for the purpose.
The graph refers to an individual — let us
say Tom. The X axis measures the gain that Tom
derives from his actions. On the 7 axis the graph
shows the gain that another person or group of
persons derive from Tom's actions. Gains can be
positive, nil or negative — a negative gain being
actually a loss. The X axis measures Tom's positive
gains to the right of point 0 and Tom's losses to
the left of point 0. The Faxis measures the gains
and losses of the person or persons with whom Tom
dealt respectively above and below point 0.
To make all this clear, let us make a hypotheti-
cal example and refer to figure 1. Tom takes an

30
 FIG. 1.

action which affects Dick. If Tom derives from

the action a gain and Dick suffers from the same
action a loss, the action will be recorded on the
graph with a dot which will appear in the graph
somewhere in area B.
Gains and losses may be recorded on the X and
Y axis in dollars or francs, if one wants, but one
has to include also psychological and emotional
rewards and satisfactions as well as psychologi-

31
cal and emotional stresses. These are intangibles
and they are very difficult to measure according
to objective standards. Cost-benefit analysis can
help to solve the problem, although not completely,
but I do not want to bother the reader with such
technicalities: a margin of imprecision is bound to
affect the measurement but it does not affect the
essence of the argument. One point though must
be made clear. When considering Tom's action one
makes use of Tom's values but one has to rely on
D i c k s values and not on Tom's values to deter-
mine Dick's gains (whether positive or negative).
All too often this rule of fairness is forgotten and
many troubles originate from failure to apply this
essentially urbane point of view. Let me resort
once again to a banal example. Tom hits Dick on
Dick's head and he derives satisfaction from his
action. He may pretend that Dick was delighted
to be hit on the head. Dick, however, may not
share Tom's view. In fact he may regard the blow
on his head as an unpleasant event. Whether the
blow on Dick's head was a gain or a loss to Dick
is up to Dick to decide and not to Tom.

32
 Chapter IV

The Third (and Golden) Basic Law

T he Third Basic Law assumes, although it does
not state it explicitly, that human beings fall
into four basic categories: the helpless, the intel-
ligent, the bandit and the stupid. It will be easily
recognized by the perspicacious reader that these
four categories correspond to the four areas /, //,
5, 5 , of the basic graph (see figure 1).
If Tom takes an action and suffers a loss while
producing a gain to Dick, Tom's mark will fall
in field H: Tom acted helplessly. If Tom takes an
action by which he makes a gain while yielding a
gain also to Dick, Tom's mark will fall in area /:
Tom acted intelligently. If Tom takes an action by
which he makes a gain causing Dick a loss, Tom's
mark will fall in area B: Tom acted as a bandit.
Stupidity is related to area S and to all positions
on axis Y below point 0.
As the Third Basic Law explicitly clarifies:

35
 «A stupid person is a person who causes
losses to another person or to a group of
persons while himself deriving no gain and
even possibly incurring losses».

When confronted for the first time with the

Third Basic Law, rational people instinctively react
with feelings of skepticism and incredulousness.
The fact is that reasonable people have difficulty
in conceiving and understanding unreasonable
behaviour. But let us abandon the lofty plane of
theory and let us look pragmatically at our daily
life. We all recollect occasions in which a fellow
took an action which resulted in his gain and in
our loss: we had to deal with a bandit. We also
recollect cases in which a fellow took an action
which resulted in his loss and in our gain: we had
to deal with a helpless person 1 . We can recollect
cases in which a fellow took an action by which
both parties gained: he was intelligent. Such cases
do indeed occur. But upon thoughtful reflection
you must admit that these are not the events
which punctuate most frequently our daily life.
Our daily life is mostly made of cases in which
we lose money and/or time and/or energy and/or
appetite, cheerfulness and good health because
of the improbable action of some preposterous

1
Notice the qualification «a fellow took an action*.
The fact he took the action is decisive in establishing that
he is helpless. If / took the action which resulted in my
gain and his loss, then the judgment would be different: /
would be a bandit.

36
creature wrho has nothing to gain and indeed gains
nothing from causing us embarrassment, difficul-
ties or harm. Nobody knows, understands or can
possibly explain why that preposterous creature
does what he does. In fact there is no explana-
tion — or better, there is only one explanation:
the person in question is stupid.

37
 Chapter V

Frequency Distribution
M ost people do not act consistently. Under
certain circumstances a given person acts
intelligently and under different circumstances
the same person will act helplessly. The only
important exception to the rule is represented by
the stupid people who normally show a strong
proclivity toward perfect consistency in all field
of h u m a n endeavours.
From all that proceeds, it does not follow
that we can chart on the basic graph only stupid
individuals. We can calculate for each person his
weighted average position in the plane of figure 1
quite independently from his degree of inconsist-
ency. A helpless person may occasionally behave
intelligently and on occasion he may perform a
bandit's action. But since the person in question
is fundamentally helpless most of his action will
have the characteristics of helplessness. Thus the
overall weighted average position of all the actions
of such person will place him in the H quadrant
of the basic graph.
The fact that it is possible to place on the
graph individuals instead of their actions allows

41
some digression about the frequency of the bandit
and stupid types.
The perfect bandit is one who, with his actions,
causes to other individuals losses equal to his gains.
The crudest type of banditry is theft. A person who
robs you of 100 pounds without causing you an
extra loss or harm is a perfect bandit: you lose 100
pounds, he gains 100 pounds. In the basic graph the
perfect bandits would appear on a 45 degree diago-
nal line that divides the area B into two perfectly
symmetrical sub-areas (line OM of figure 2).
However the «perfect» bandits are relatively
few. The line OM divided the area B into two sub-
areas, Bf and Bs, and by far the largest majority
of the bandits fall somewhere in one of these two
sub-areas.
The bandits who fall in area Bj are those indi-
viduals whose actions yield to them profits which
are larger than the losses they cause to other people.
All bandits who are entitled to a position in area
Bf are bandits with overtones of intelligence and
as they get closer to the right side of the X axis
they share more and more the characteristics of the
intelligent person. Unfortunately the individuals
entitled to a position in the B, area are not very
numerous. Most bandits actually fall in area Bs.
The individuals who fall in this area are those
whose actions yield to them gains inferior to the
losses inflicted to other people. If someone kills
you in order to rob from you fifty pounds or if he
murders you in order to spend a weekend with
your wife at Monte Carlo, we can be sure that he

42
 FIG. 2.

is not a perfect bandit. Even by using his values

to measure his gains (but still using your values
to measure your losses) he falls in the Bs area
very close to the border of sheer stupidity. Gener-
als who cause vast destructions and innumerable
casualties in return for a promotion or a medal
fall in the same area.
The frequency distribution of the stupid people
is totally different from that of the bandit. While

43
bandits are mostly scattered over an area stupid
people are heavily concentrated along one line,
specifically on the J 7 axis below point 0 . The reason
for this is that by far the majority of stupid people
are basically and unwaveringly stupid — in other
words they perseveringly insist in causing harm and
losses to other people without deriving any gain,
whether positive or negative. There are however
people who by their improbable actions not only
cause damages to other people but in addition hurt
themselves. They are a sort of super-stupid who, in
our system of accounting, will appear somewhere
in the area S to the left of the Y axis.

44
 Chapter VI

Stupidity and Power

L ike all h u m a n creatures, also stupid people
vary enormously in their capacity to affect
their fellow men. Some stupid people normally
cause only limited losses while others egregiously
succeed in causing ghastly and widespread dam-
ages not only to one or two individuals but to
entire communities or societies. The damaging
potential of the stupid person depends on two
major factors. First of all, it depends on the ge-
netic factor. Some individuals inherit exceptional
doses of the gene of stupidity and by virtue of
inheritance they belong from birth to the elite of
their group. The second factor which determines
the potential of a stupid person is related to the
position of power and consequence which he
occupies in society. Among bureaucrats, gener-
als, politicians and heads of state one has little
difficulty in finding clear examples of basically
stupid individuals whose damaging capacity was
(or is) alarmingly enhanced by the position of
power which they occupied (or occupy). Religious
dignitaries should not be overlooked.

47
 The question that reasonable people often raise
is how and why stupid people can reach positions
of power and consequence.
Class and caste were the social arrangements
which favoured the steady supply of stupid people
to positions of power in most societies of the pre-
industrial world. Religion was another contributing
factor. In the modern industrial world class and
caste are banished both as words and as concepts
and religion is fading away. But in lieu of class and
caste we have political parties and bureaucracy
and in lieu of religion we have democracy. Within
a democratic system, general elections are a most
effective instrument to insure the steady mainte-
nance of fraction a among the powerful. One has
to keep in mind that according to the Second Basic
Law, the fraction a of the voting population are
stupid people and elections offer to all of them at
once a magnificent opportunity to harm everybody
else without gaining anything from their action.
They do so by contributing to the maintenance of
the a level among those in power.

48
 Chapter VII

The Power of Stupidity

I t is not difficult to understand how social, political
and institutional power enhances the damaging
potential of a stupid person. But one still has to
explain and understand what essentially it is that
makes a stupid person dangerous to other people
— in other words what constitutes the power of
stupidity.
Essentially stupid people are dangerous and
damaging because reasonable people find it dif-
ficult to imagine and understand unreasonable
behaviour. An intelligent person may understand
the logic of a bandit. The bandit's actions fol-
low a pattern of rationality: nasty rationality, if
you like, but still rationality. The bandit wants
a plus on his account. Since he is not intelligent
enough to devise ways of obtaining the plus as
well as providing you with a plus, he will produce
his plus by causing a minus to appear on your
account. All this is bad, but it is rational and
if you are rational you can predict it. You can
foresee a bandit's actions, his nasty manoeuvres
and ugly aspirations and often can build up your
defences.

51
 With a stupid person all this is absolutely
impossible as explained by the Third Basic Law.
A stupid creature will harass you for no reason,
for no advantage, without any plan or scheme
and at the most improbable times and places.
You have no rational way of telling if and when
and how and why the stupid creature attacks.
When confronted with a stupid individual you
are completely at his mercy.
Because the stupid person's actions do not con-
form to the rules of rationality, it follows that:
a) one is generally caught by surprise by the
attack;
b) even when one becomes aware of the attack,
one cannot organize a rational defence, because
the attack itself lacks any rational structure.
The fact that the activity and movements of a
stupid creature are absolutely erratic and irrational
not only makes defence problematic but it also
makes any counterattack extremely difficult — like
trying to shoot at an object which is capable of the
most improbable and unimaginable movements.
This is what both Dickens and Schiller had in
mind when the former stated that «with stupidity
and sound digestion man may front much» and
the latter wrote that «against stupidity the very
Gods fight in vain».

52
 Chapter VIII

The Fourth Basic Law

T hat helpless people, namely those who in our
accounting system fall into the H area, do not
normally recognize how dangerous stupid people
are, is not at all surprising. Their failure is just
another expression of their helplessness. The truly
amazing fact, however, is that also intelligent peo-
ple and bandits often fail to recognize the power
to damage inherent in stupidity. It is extremely
difficult to explain why this should happen and
one can only remark that when confronted with
stupid individuals often intelligent men as well as
bandits make the mistake of indulging in feelings
of self-complacency and contemptuousness instead
of immediately secreting adequate quantities of
adrenalin and building up defences.
One is tempted to believe that a stupid man
will only do harm to himself but this is confusing
stupidity with helplessness. On occasion one is
tempted to associate oneself with a stupid indi-
vidual in order to use him for one's own schemes.
Such a manoeuvre cannot but have disastrous
effects because a) it is based on a complete mis-
understanding of the essential nature of stupidity

55
and 6) it gives the stupid person added scope for
the exercise of his gifts. One may hope to out-
manoeuvre the stupid and up to a point one may
actually do so. But because of the erratic behaviour
of the stupid, one cannot foresee all the stupid's
actions and reactions and before long one will
be pulverized by the unpredictable moves of the
stupid partner.
This is clearly summarized in the Fourth Basic
Law which states that:

«Non-stupid people always underesti-

mate the damaging power of stupid indi-
viduals. In particular non-stupid people
constantly forget that at all times and places
and under any circumstances to deal and/or
associate with stupid people infallibly turns
out to be a costly mistake».

Through centuries and millennia, in public as

in private life, countless individuals have failed
to take account of the Fourth Basic Law and the
failure has caused mankind incalculable losses.

56
 Chapter IX

Macro Analysis
and the Fifth Basic Law
T he consideration on which the previous chapter
ends is conducive to a macro-type of analysis
in which instead of considering the welfare of the
individual one considers the welfare of the society,
regarded in this context as the algebric sum of the
individual conditions. A full understanding of the
Fifth Basic Law is essential to the analysis. It may
be parenthetically added here that of the Five
Basic Laws, the Fifth is certainly the best known
and its corollary is quoted very frequently. The
Fifth Basic Law states that

« A stupid person is the most dangerous

type of person».

The corollary of the Law is that

«A stupid person is more dangerous

t h a n a bandit».

The formulation of the Law and its corollary

is still of the micro-type. As indicated above, how-

59
ever, the Law and its corollary have far reaching
implications of a macro-nature.
The essential point to keep in mind is this:
the result of the action of a perfect bandit (the
person who falls on line OM of figure 2) is purely
and simply a transfer of wealth and/or welfare.
After the action of a perfect bandit, the bandit
has a plus on his account which plus is exactly
equivalent to the minus he has caused to an-
other person. The society as a whole is neither
better nor worse off. If all members of a society
were perfect bandits the society would remain
stagnant but there would be no major disaster.
The whole business would amount to massive
transfers of wealth and welfare in favour of those
who would take action. If all members of the
society would take action in regular turns, not
only the society as a whole but also individuals
would find themselves in a perfectly steady state
of no change.
When stupid people are at work, the story
is totally different. Stupid people cause losses
to other people with no counterpart of gains on
their own account. Thus the society as a whole is
impoverished.
The system of accounting which finds expres-
sion in the basic graphs shows that while all ac-
tions of individuals falling to the right of the line
POM (see fig. 3) add to the welfare of a society,
although in different degrees, the actions of all
individuals falling to the left of the same line POM
cause a deterioration.

60
 FIG. 3.

In other words the helpless with overtones

of intelligence (area / / / ) , the bandits with over-
tones of intelligence (area Bf) and above all
the intelligent (area /) all contribute, though
in different degrees, to accrue to the welfare of
a society. On the other hand the bandits with
overtones of stupidity (area Bs) and the helpless
with overtones of stupidity (area Hs) manage to
add losses to those caused by stupid people thus

61
enhancing the nefarious destructive power of the
latter group.
All this suggests some reflection on the per-
formance of societies. According to the Second Ba-
sic Law, the fraction of stupid people is a constant
a which is not affected by time, space, race, class
or any other socio-cultural or historical variable.
It would be a profound mistake to believe the
number of stupid people in a declining society is
greater than in a developing society. Both such
societies are plagued by the same percentage of
stupid people. The difference between the two
societies is that in the society which performs
poorly:
a) the stupid members of the society are allowed
by the other members to become more active and
take more actions;
6) there is a change in the composition of the
non-stupid section with a relative decline of popu-
lations of areas /, Hj and B{ and a proportionate
increase of populations of area Hs and Bs.
This theoretical presumption is abundantly
confirmed by an exhaustive analysis of historical
cases. In fact the historical analysis allows us to
reformulate the theoretical conclusions in a more
factual way and with more realistic detail.
Whether one considers classical, or medieval,
or modern or contemporary times one is impressed
by the fact that any country moving uphill has its
unavoidable a fraction of stupid people. However
the country moving uphill also has an unusually
high fraction of intelligent people who manage to

62
keep the a fraction at bay and at the same time
produce enough gains for themselves and the other
members of the community to make progress a
certainty.
In a country which is moving downhill, the
fraction of stupid people is still equal to a; however
in the remaining population one notices among
those in power an alarming proliferation of the
bandits with overtones of stupidity (sub area Bs
of quadrant B in figure 3) and among those not in
power an equally alarming growth in the number of
helpless individuals ( a r e a / / i n basic graph, fig. 1).
Such change in the composition of the non-stupid
population inevitably strengthens the destructive
power of the a fraction and makes decline a cer-
tainty. And the country goes to Hell.

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Appendix
I n the following pages the reader will find a
number of basic graphs which he can use to
record the actions of individuals or groups with
whom he is currently dealing. This will enable the
reader to produce useful evaluations of the indi-
viduals or groups under scrutiny and will allowT
him to take a rational course of action.

67
NAMES

X=

V - (The reader)

68
NAMES

X=

¥ = (The reader)

69