Hickory, Dickory, Dock: Why our leaders are tumbling down

By Bhabani Shankar Nayak* 

The old nursery rhyme “Hickory, Dickory, Dock” has amused children for over three centuries. Its ancient Celtic origins may have helped shepherds count their flocks, but many believe it also mocks Richard Cromwell, the timid son of a mighty protector. Nicknamed “Tumbledown Dick” and “Hickory Dick,” Richard became a symbol of weak rule. Today, that allegory feels disturbingly current. Our leaders, across parties and institutions, often display the same cowardly cunning, hiding behind ideology while practicing authoritarianism in all but name.

Leaders talk endlessly about principles, yet they operate in an ideology-free zone. Rules are strictly for followers. Accountability is for the weak. This hollowness is not accidental; it is the product of a managerial culture bred by modern capitalism. Leadership, however, is not about management. True leadership means taking difficult stands against power, challenging the status quo, and swimming against the current for democratic and progressive change. It demands sacrifice, not self-promotion.

Contemporary leaders are often crude careerists, skilled in compliance but incapable of transforming society. They centralise decision-making and concentrate power, irrespective of their professed ideology. Authoritarianism has become the governing principle of our age—whether dressed in ideological garb or presented as value-free technocracy.

Lenin warned about this long ago. In "Left-Wing Communism: An Infantile Disorder", he worried about “careerists, charlatans, and unreliable persons” who pursue power solely for profit. He saw such shameless careerism as part of a bourgeois parliamentary culture that pervades trade unions, professions, and everyday life. These opportunists, he argued, are enemies of the people, regenerating a bourgeois environment driven by market forces.

Today, that environment is everywhere. Democracies, states, families, universities, courts, and political parties all operate on managerial hierarchies. Their primary function is to manage opinions without threatening the establishment that governs our lives and resources. Journalists, teachers, doctors, activists—all are caught in the same web. They manage, but they do not lead.

Most leaders today are not forged in revolutionary struggles or mass movements. They are products of privilege, propaganda, and powerful networks. Once elected, they forget the voters. This universal norm cuts across politics, education, and business, leaving us with leaders who lack moral vision or any coherent plan to serve the people.

Driving out these careerist leaders from every sphere of public life is essential. Without that, radical change is absorbed by the system. Capitalist structures survive precisely because compromised leaders, free from ideals, choose institutional stability over people’s welfare. They promote strong states and centralised power, but weaken citizens in their daily lives.

An alternative exists. Collective leadership, with individual responsibilities and shared accountabilities, offers a different path. It prioritises collective happiness and minimises threats to the social fabric. This is not just theory; it has worked. From the village of Marinaleda in Andalusia to China’s united front strategy in decision-making and welfare delivery, we see the power of collective governance. These examples prove that leadership can be democratic, progressive, and accountable.

The clock is ticking. It is time to move beyond “Hickory, Dickory, Dock” leadership and build institutions that truly serve the people and the planet.

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Academic based in UK