true progress is achieved through moving forward to a better way of life, rather than upward to total life incompetence. - Laurence J. Peter

In a hierarchy, every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence.

Such an extreme policy will not be generally tolerated. So, to avoid the accumulation of incompetents, administrators have evolved the plan of promoting everyone, the incompetent as well as the competent. They find psychological justification for this policy by saying that it spares students the painful experience of failure.

As individuals we tend to climb to our levels of incompetence. We behave as though up is better and more is better, and yet all around us we see the tragic victims of this mindless escalation.