Peter’s Principle is a side-effect of a world epidemic of the blind leading the blind.

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A human being must eat or he will die. Therefore, the purpose of a human being is to eat.

Absurd?

Ask a few random people what the purpose of a business is, and then ask them to explain their answer.

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Most people do not know how to think about or talk about Why questions.

They are unaware of the the fact that for each of us a tacit sense of Why illuminates reality and determines what we see.

Lacking this fundamental awareness, they are even more oblivious to how Why reflects from the skin of things in the form of relevance.

Least of all are they aware that this sense of relevance leads us to ask some kinds of questions and to neglect other kinds of questions.

The horizons of our intellect are drawn by the questions we know how to ask.

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Peter’s Principle happens when a person gets promoted to a position that requires the ability to ask questions that he does not know how to ask.

Instead of learning to ask new questions he dispenses with asking questions and cuts straight to answers of the kind that have worked for him in the past.

Why? he is asked? “Because we are making this.”

Why? “Because this is how things are done.”

According to similarly incapacitated people (in all likelihood, his boss) — he has the answers. He has a clear goal and a clear plan for getting there.

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Utilitarians see no reason why schools, nations — the whole world — shouldn’t be run like a huge company.

Why not? How else should they be run?

A utilitarian sees no alternative, and therefore there is none.

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As recently as a century ago wealthy industrialists were looked down upon by certain people as crass and barbaric. That was before industrialists took over education and made sure education taught everyone no alternative than to look up at them.