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As promised in Sunday’s (April 11) Book Salon, with Prof. Arnold M. Ludwig’s King of the Mountain—The Nature of Political Leadership, here is the ranking of U.S. presidents on Ludwig’s Political Greatness Scale (PGS). These measures characterize the lives of the immortal greats, like Caesar, Napoleon, Darius, Alexander the Great, Washington, Lincoln and others of their historic status. Do not confuse the term ‘great leader’ with a leader considered to be good for his country. Eleven scalable (usually 0 to 3) factors are included (pp. 276-77): Something from Nothing; More Than Before; Staying Power; Military Prowess; Social Engineering; Economics; Statesmanship; Ideology; Moral Exemplar; Political Legacy; Population of Country.
| 1 | Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 1933-1945 | 30 | top |
| 2 | Woodrow Wilson, 1913-1921 | 24 | top |
| 3 | Theodore Roosevelt, 1901-1909 | 23 | top |
| 4 | Harry S. Truman, 1945-1953 | 23 | top |
| 5 | Ronald Wilson Reagan, 1981-1989 | 22 | top |
| 6 | William McKinley, 1897-1901 | 20 | top |
| 7 | Dwight David Eisenhower 1953-1961 | 18 | top |
| 8 | Lyndon Baines Johnson, 1963-1969 | 18 | top |
| 9 | John Fitzgerald Kennedy, 1961-1963 | 15 | top |
| 10 | George Herbert Walker Bush, 1989-1993 | 15 | top |
| 11 | William Jefferson Clinton, 1993-2001 | 15 | top |
| 12 | Calvin Coolidge, 1923-1929 | 14 | top |
| 13 | James Earl Carter, Jr., 1977-1981 | 14 | top |
| 14 | William Howard Taft, 1909-1913 | 12 | middle |
| 15 | Richard Milhous Nixon, 1969-1974 | 11 | middle |
| 16 | Gerald Rudolph Ford, 1974-1977 | 11 | middle |
| 17 | Herbert Clark Hoover, 1929-1933 | 10 | middle |
| 18 | Warren Gamaliel Harding, 1921-1923 | 9 | bottom |
The column of numbers is the numeric PGS. By way of comparison, of all leaders of all countries in the 21st century, FDR is surpassed only by Atatürk, 31, and is tied for second with Mao, as shown in the original post. The third column is the place of the president in the top, middle, or bottom third of all leaders in the world, or at least that robust subset of 377 leaders for whom there were enough autobiographical data to be included in this ranking.
It is to U.S. credit that 13 of the 18 rank in the top third, I suppose. Living through half of them, it doesn’t seem that they are so respectable. But perhaps they look good in comparison to scores of incompetents and fools in other countries. YMMV.
29 Comments
I am an extreme liberal, but I would rank Eisenhower and Nixon much higher. Many of the basic orders and CFRs for environmental regulation emerged in the Nixon Administration and Eisenhower “paved” the way for the economic growth that lead us toward world leadership without sacrificing the Middle Class. I would rate GW Bush slightly below Harding and Obama somewhere between Coolidge and Hoover. Maybe the 22nd century will give us some true world leaders again. Maybe not. Ps: I don’t think Wilson deserves such a lofty ranking.
Thanks for the list.
Love the classy avatar.
I saw the part of the list that you had on that great Book Salon. Thanks for that and for this as well.
Daddy Bush ahead of Bill Clinton is preposterous.
Reagan triples the national debt, a good many in his administration get convicted for Iran-Contra, and he’s number five?
The two most consequential Presidents of the 20th century were FDR and Johnson (with all his faults). I would rank Truman, Eisenhower, and Teddy Roosevelt next.
I would put Wilson, Nixon, and Clinton next as substantial Presidencies with strong negatives.
Most of the others I would describe as either non-descript or major failures. Among the failures, I would rank Reagan, Hoover, and Obama near the bottom with Dubya at the very bottom. (with the caveat that Obama could still surpass him).
I would note that all of the Presidents of the 20s Harding, Coolidge, and Hoover were disasters. FDR, Truman, and Eisenhower were a string of flawed but effective Presidents. The Kennedy assassination initiated 47 years of largely failed Presidents. Johnson came closest to greatness but was destroyed by Vietnam. Things went downhill with Nixon and after him stayed there. I used to think that Clinton was on average a reasonably good President but as I have become better grounded in economics my view of him has deteriorated badly.
Agreed! And as far as Alpha Maleness goes Bush was considered a Wimp by George Will and everyone to the Left of George me and George Will agreeing on anything (I feel dirty).
Clinton was a considered a good leader at the time his changes to business law are now considered a disaster but at the time his only flaw was women an Alpha Male trait.
People eCHAN’s point is leadership or maybe a better word manipulative ability Reagan certainly was a master manipulator. I agree he was a disaster for the country.
Still if I just look at manipulative ability then Clinton gots Bush 1 beat six ways to sunday.
Something from Nothing; Reagan had it worse than Bill < Reagan
More Than Before; Clinton gave us more than before but it faded quick under Bush still < Clinton
Staying Power; Reagan 2 terms = Clinton 2 terms tie
Military Prowess; Reagan retreats from Lebanon, invades Granada, Clinton stops Genocide in Serbia < Clinton
Social Engineering; Reagan Southern Strategy a winner for more than a decade, Clinton third way politics failed Gore and Hilary looks to fail Obama in November < Reagan
Economics; Reagan left the average worker worse off but he got them working, Clinton left workers better off but helped create the economic disaster Bush poured gas on. Reagan = Clinton I’ll call it a tie.
Statesmanship; Reagan got a reduce Nuke treaty, Clinton was respected and his opinions listened to on foreign matters Reagan = Clinton a tie
Ideology; Reagan beats Clinton Reagan’s ideology is more than 2 decades later the GOP bible. Clinton Third Wayism is something we are trying to bury < Reagan
Moral Exemplar; < Clinton, Reagan supported Death Squads who killed Nuns!
Political Legacy; < Reagan
Population of Country. Not sure how to score this?
Reagan beats Clinton by 1 point but who was better for the country Clinton.
Peter the Great did many of the same things Ataturk did is he on the list?
Um, 20th century only.
eCAHN, thanks for the list.
Why no Shrub? Inquiring minds want to know where the Deciderator stands,
especially compared with Dad.
(OK, not 20th century, but still…)
They’re tied. Think it might have to do with fall of Soviet Union during daddy’s time. One gets credit for being in the right place at the right time.
You got it, 20th C only.
The book originally was published in 2002.
All of the 377 world leaders, the smaller, but still large, sample got ranked on each of those categories by 3-4 readers of each biography. Agreement among the biography readers on the rankings was high. Each category had a numeric value of 0-3, two categories were 0-5. So if a leader got top ranking on every category, the score would be 37.
I was goofing I used my own judgment and his criteria I was unaware of his scoring system. I was just trying to show folks if evil and stupid are not negatives and only impact matters then Reagan does beat Clinton.
I hope nobody here thinks I like Reagan I do have a Rep! :)
Interesting list. Interesting how political greatness and being good for the country are so far apart in many cases.
FDR was great for the country, Wilson was a disaster. That’s a pretty big drop off from 1st place to 2nd place.
Doing the right thing is never easy.
Recommended. But Political Greatness is tough to measure. I would disagree with Wilson as #2. He was racist, got us into a War, and he was incapacitated during much of his second term. J. Edgar Hoover got his start as part of Wilson’s political repression against “reds”. Truman at #4, maybe, but he did get us into the Korean War.
McKinley, Coolidge, Taft and Harding, not much there there except perhaps imperialism and early bankster fraud.
Ah, now I understand who designed the basketball and hockey playoff system.
I’m surprised Pat Paulsen wasn’t on the list.
eCAHNomics, did you get the URL for the authors database?
I don’t agree with some of the scoring. He attributes single events to a particular president without taking into consideration that history is a series of events that may not have anything to do with the leader that gets credit or blame.
The Dr. gave credit to Reagan for the fall of the USSR, but didn’t consider that it was Carter’s Administration that backed the Afghan warlords against them.
The list is also on Amazon book preview.
Harding, we hardly knew ye.
I think the wrong Reagan is on the list. Should be Nancy. Don Regan agrees.
After perusing Ludwig’s book and reading through Sunday’s book salon, I think this review is pretty close to correct.
http://www.nthposition.com/kingofthe.php
No, the events are for illustration. The scores were determined by reviewers reading biographies, several for each biography, and generally they agreed to a great degree.
Well, I guess one person’s opinion must be more valuable than an 18 year study of, you know, actual data.
Well, not necessarily so, but possibly so. And, the review is not altogether negative. In fact, the review ended on this complimentary note.
As your own comments suggested late into the salon thread, Ludwig seems to be a bit foggy on the damn premise of the book.
Also, although I know you could care less as to my opinion, you did an excellent job hosting the salon.
Prof. Ludwig was probably less foggy at the time the book was first published (2002?). I know my recall of my work in the 15 years prior to 2002 is reduced to an overview, with the details increasingly elusive.
I thought he was an excellent guest, though. Very enjoyable salon.
And kudos to the excellent host, who did an admirable job of keeping things moving.
I would rank
1. FDR (W.W II victory while siding with right side in-spite of heavy odds for victory at the start of the war & Depression handling),
2. LBJ (Sheer Scale of Legislative achievements positively affecting main street with little blood-shed not matched by any President before or since except by President Thomas Jefferson)
3. Teddy Roosevelt (Trust-busting which current administration and congress can learn regarding what a tough fight really means and environmental activism which was extremely progressive for that age and period).
Thanks.
Think it’s more likely that I’m foggy on the premise. I have yet to figure out why evolution is not circular, defined in terms of survivability, then judged by survivors. But then, I have done very little reading on evolution that directly addresses that issue, so I’m pretty sure the problem is mine & not his.
In the prep, Bev mentioned that guests/hosts who are not used to the format are nervous, which gave me great insight. I thought that Ludwig exhibited that in spades, esp at the beginning, when his As were short to the point of banality. His As got better as the salon progressed.
I think my issues with evolution were beyond the scope of the format for him to discuss.
I’d make a general observation about the disagreement in these comments about the ranking of Nixon & LBJ. It’s what happens when a particular leader combines some good (or very good) accomplishments with some bad (or very bad) ones. It is a general human trait to weigh the one a particular individual ranks more or less important. But as a first (and only I’ve seen to date), more objective way to handle such disparities, is to have multiple rankers evaluate complete biographies as Ludwig did. I think that is a good starting point, not the end of the story. Others should take this research farther, as is the case with scientific methodology. One of the cogent points in the review that oldgold linked to in 22 was that biographies tend to be positively biased, so that it is no guaranty that different readers reading same biographies will come up with an ‘objective’ ranking. (Remembering that biographies of Pol Pot & Hitler do not display such a bias, but rather the opposite one, which appears realistic, rather than a ‘bias.’) But taking the research that Ludwig started additional steps, rather than just advancing your personal preferences, would be a good next step.