What’s the difference between a politician and an MBA? I don’t know, but I don’t trust either bunch.

In this article over at The Economist on what’s wrong with MBA programs today, I found the most interesting little tidbit which claimed that students in MBA programs “are much more likely to cheat than students in other disciplines.” Isn’t that… profoundly unsurprising?

It is to me. It’s not just because I remember the MBA students encountered during my undergraduate years, people who seemed skilled only at wearing suits and regurgitating someone else’s interpretation of economics—people who often didn’t even seem bright enough to respond to questions that we unwashed plebians (ie. casually dressed students from other departments) might pose to them during their inevitable campaigns for student government.

It’s also because I have worked for several people who held MBAs and who demonstrated the worst business judgment I have ever seen in my life, making mistakes that even I was intelligent enough not to make. Making mistakes that took three or four years to destroy their companies, with plenty of warning signs including direct explanation of the warning signs by employees such as myself.

It doesn’t take much to get most MBAs, I can assure. Maybe at the elite schools they actually learn something worthwhile, but for my money the average MBA is on about the same intellectual level as the clown in a Shakespeare play, except less clever in the punning department.

Anyway, the article’s sort of interesting.