What is there to read about the need and needs of politics and politicians.

That to be elected and stay elected in politics to any full-time position requires the suspension of any ethics or good sense a person may possess. Even those who begin political careers with the best intentions and have measurable abilities that would make them successful in any field soon realize that the skills required to succeed in politics are not those required outside politics. Explains that, while competition in the marketplace improves quality or methods to market, competition in politics does just the opposite; as the only improvements take place in the process of doing bad things: lying, cheating, manipulating, stealing, and killing. The price of political services is constantly increasing, whether in tax money paid or in the bribes owed for protection (also known as campaign contributions). There is no obsolescence, planned or otherwise.
And as Hayek famously argued, in politics, the worst get on top. And there is no accountability: the higher the office, the more criminal wrongdoing a person can get away with.
Thus it becomes "a psychic impossibility for a gentleman to hold office under the State," wrote Mencken. Democracy makes it possible for the demagogue to inflame the childish imagination of the masses, "by virtue of his talent for nonsense" using the methods well established by their religions. The king can do the same thing in a monarchy but only by virtue of his birth.
In stark contrast, in the natural order, it is "raw material, production, and voluntary exchange that are the ultimate sources of human civilization." This natural order, can only be maintained by a natural elite, which would come by the positions of "natural authority" not by election as in the case of democracy, or birth as in the case of monarchy, but by their "superior achievements, of wealth, wisdom, bravery or a combination thereof." This is just the opposite of what is described as a characteristic of democracy through representation.
Instead, representative democracy affords the opportunity for anyone to pursue politics as a career. There is no need for the masses to recognize a person as "wise" or "successful," as the natural order would require. Nor does one have to be born into the ruling family, as in the case of monarchy.
There may be politicians that pursue elected office for the money, but many elected officials are already wealthy by most people's standards. What makes the wealthy and otherwise successful want to hold office? Is it, as in The Pursuit of Attention: Power and Ego in Everyday Life, that politicians since "Caesar and Napoleon have been driven by overweening egos and an insatiable hunger for public adulation"?
The work of psychologist Abraham Maslow may provide an understanding as to why even successful entrepreneurs would seek public office. Maslow is famous for his "hierarchy of needs" theory that is taught in most management classes in schools and universities.
The theory is generally presented visually as a five steps stairs, with the lowest or most basic human need — physiological need — shown as a layer along the foot of the stairs. Maslow's view was that the basic human needs — thirst, hunger, breathing — must be satisfied before humans could accomplish or worry about anything else. The next tranche on the stairs, shown on top of the physiological need, is the safety need. After satisfying thirst and hunger, humans are concerned about their continued survival. If a man is constantly worried about being eaten by a tiger, he doesn't concern himself with much else.
The next layer presented on Maslow's stairs is the belonging need, which lies just above safety need. After the satisfaction of the two lower needs — physiological and safety — a person seeks friendships, companionship, and community. Once this need is satisfied, according to Maslow, humans seek esteem. These first four needs were considered deficit needs. If a person is lacking, there is a motivation to fill that need. Once the particular need is filled, the motivation abates. This makes these needs different than the need at the top of Maslow's stairs, the need for self-actualization. The need for self-actualization is never satisfied, and Maslow referred to it as a being need — be all you can be.
Thus, humans continually strive to satisfy their needs, and as the more basic needs are satisfied, humans move up the stairs, to satisfy higher-level needs. Of course, different humans achieve different levels, and it was Maslow's view that only two percent of humans become self-actualizing. Now we see the qualities displayed by virtually all politicians in democracy: the constant need for status and recognition, because democracy is open to any and all who can get elected — either through connections, personality, or personal wealth — it is a social system where leadership positions can become a hotbed for sociopaths. Maslow's self-actualizing man or woman will not have an interest in politics. But those stuck on the need for esteem are drawn to it like flies to dung.
The Catholic church and other Christian churches have over years educated political and intellectual elites in schools and universities to satsify their self actualisation needs to control folk masses and the trade between them for the own economical benefits and privileges. This acknowledges that the desire to manipulate opinion can stem from the motive of seeking to benefit self actualization of the church rather than the society.
With leadership in such dysfunctional hands, it is no wonder. "In comparison to the nineteenth century, the cognitive prowess of the political and intellectual elites and the quality of public education have declined," "And the rates of crime, structural unemployment, welfare dependency, parasitism, negligence, recklessness, incivility, psychopathy, and religious fanatism have increased."
So while the electorate recognizes that they are electing at best incompetents and at worst crooks, the constant, naïve, prodemocracy mantra is that "we just need to elect the right people."
But the "right people" are not (and will not be) running for office. Instead, we will continue to have "the average" as " work is about a search for daily meaning as well as daily bread, for recognition as well as cash, for astonishment rather than torpor; in short, for a sort of life rather than a Monday through Friday sort of dying."
The assumption of the hierarchy is that the lower needs have to be met first, and are preconditions for the realization of the higher needs, although a temporary insufficiency in the lower levels will not undo the aspirations of the higher levels. Conversely, someone who normally has problems satisfying lower level needs, will not find the resources necessary to focus on higher level needs.