Thomas Carlyle rails against modern corruption, greed,…

Thomas Carlyle rails against modern corruption, greed, and quackery, following the Revolutions of 1848 and political agitations in the United Kingdom, in his diatribe against the money-madness of the Industrial Age, Latter Day Pamphlets, a collection of essays published in 1850.

He attacks democracy as an absurd social ideal, while equally condemning hereditary aristocratic leadership.

The latter is deadening, the former nonsensical: as though truth could be discovered by toting up votes.

Government should come from those most able.

But how we are to recognize the ablest, and to follow their lead, is something Carlyle cannot clearly say.