[js1138]

Nor do I think much of Bill Buckley's quip. He is himself an intellectual and has never seriously recommended any such policy.

Sure he has. Five hundred people is a pretty good statistical sample. Enough to predict all but the closest elections. Something the Harvard faculty certainly could not do. Five hundred people chosen at random would be a microcosm of the country as a whole, it would reflect the tastes, ambitions, diversity and character of the country, and it would be unable to formulate central plans, the kind that result in millions of executations.

[liberallarry]

Well, if the "first 500 names in the Cambridge phone book" or 500 people chosen at random, are more capable of running the country than those chosen by present methods (which invariably include a strong record of success in difficult endeavors involving intelligence) then they are certainly good enough to run large corporations. Why then do stockholders waste all that money on CEOs and other expensive officers?

Also, slaughters by mindless mobs are common as dirt in human history. When they're led by intelligent people they just do a better job of it.