‘empleomania’: meaning and origin

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Especially used in contexts relating to Spain and Latin America, the noun empleomania designates mania for holding public office.

This noun occurs, for example, in a letter on political terminology, by one Robert Reid, of Wisconsin Dells, published in the Baraboo News Republic (Baraboo, Wisconsin, USA) of Saturday 22nd November 2014 [page A5, column 5]:
Note: Robert Reid quotes a book by the U.S. author, broadcaster and vocabularian Charles Elster (1957-2023):

“An insatiable desire to run for or hold public office” defines “empleomania.” Initially, I thought “empleomania” might apply to a local candidate in the recent Wisconsin elections, but then I remembered that he “[doesn’t] like politics or politicians,” so he couldn’t possibly be an empleomaniac. Or could he? Only time will tell.

The noun empleomania is a borrowing from Spanish empleomanía, from empleo, i.e., employment, and the suffix ‑manía, i.e., -mania.

The earliest occurrences that I have found of the noun empleomania in texts in English are as follows, in chronological order:

1-: From The Charleston Courier (Charleston, South Carolina, USA) of Friday 24th July 1829 [page 2, column 2]:
Note: Spanish “esta dilatadisima empleo-mania” translates as “this widespread empleomania”:

According to the National Gazette, of Philadelphia, office seekers are as plenty in the new Republic of Mexico, as in our own country, at the present moment. It says—
“Heavy complaints are made in the Mexican papers, of the wide prevalence in their Republic, of the office-hunting mania. It is called esta dilatadisima empleo-mania, and some melancholy predictions are founded upon the general disposition to seek public employment, without regard to fitness, and to the neglect of persevering exertions in private callings, for which alone the majority are qualified. The Mexican papers seem to think that the government should choose only those who are specially qualified to serve the nation.”

2-: From The Evening Chronicle (London, England) of Monday 14th June 1841 [page 2, column 4]:

SPAIN.
MADRID, June 4.
[FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT.]

The tide of revolution which has already touched in its progress most departments of Spanish society, seems at present chiefly directed against the place-system, or empleomania, as it is justly called here. The Crown, the aristocracy, the church, having severally experienced the influence of popular power awakened during the war of independence, the place-system—an evil as great as any attending the former state of the above institutions—now comes to its turn. The importance of the debate in the Lower Chamber, yesterday, rested almost entirely upon this circumstance. So general has been the desire to attack this system, that a proposition, or project of law rather, was presented to the Chamber for the purpose of preventing all deputies holding situations under government from receiving their salaries while attending their duties as members of the Cortes. The object of the law was, in fact, to deter any person holding a place under the government from accepting the office of deputy. […] Many of the deputy-placemen in the house voted in favour of the measure, some from fear of their constituents in the provinces, where the cry against empleomania is loud, others from a point of false honour lest they should be suspected of opposing the proposition from interested motives.
While this war thus rages against empleomania, the place-holders in the public offices and the contractors of Madrid are not idle. They dread reform of the administration, and are throwing all the obstacles in their power in the way of the progress of ministers.

3-: From The Examiner (London, England) of Saturday 17th June 1843 [page 371, column 2]:

CONTINENTAL POLITICS.
(From our own Correspondent.)
FRANCE AND SPAIN.

[…]
In Spain, unfortunately, the dominant class, which is to give stability to a revolution, is not yet formed. The landed proprietors of rank or education are set aside as Carlists or Christinites. Of capitalists there are but half-a-dozen, and they are mere harpies; and the class, which alone appears on the scene, consists of functionaries, or would-be functionaries, men possessing or greedy of place. The country is poor, and there is not enough for all the seekers. Hence there is taking place in Spain, as in the South American States, a continued series of struggles and revolutions between two hungry parties, separated from each other by no principle, but merely anxious to keep or get place, influence, and emolument. It is the empleomania, as they themselves admit, which, more than any other interest or prejudice, at present agitate the Spaniards.

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