greed

[miriam_e]

The following was sent to me as an email from a friend of mine, Suzannah. She grew up in Africa. Her life experiences have sensitised her to injustice.

Who lives here?

This Mansion is in Harare and belongs to:

The President of Zimbabwe, Robert Mugabe

While his people starve, they do not have food, and die from lack of medical help...
And we are asked to help his people over and over again..
He and his family live like this... His obscene GREED kills his people...

What this man is doing to his people? How do they live? -- the citizens he supposedly serves? (Though, of course he doesn't think of it that way -- he feels they serve him.)

"For evil to flourish, all that is needed is for good people to do nothing."

Comments

[greylock]

Well, he's the president, dug! You can't expect him to be presidenting on an empty stomach, cold and hungry, can you know?

(I knew what the answer would be, but then Mugabe was in my mind as he has been commenting on the riots).

[miriam_e]

:)

I've long felt that all politicians should be required to live at the standard of the average person in their country. This would give them very real incentive to improve the conditions there. Note that I don't mean the average level of wealth, because that is very easy to distort with just a few obscenely wealthy people; I mean the standard of living of the average person.

As part of that I think all politicians should be forced to state-school their children -- not private-school them. Politicians should be forced to use public transport, or if a car is absolutely necessary it should be an average clunker without a chauffeur. They should be disallowed from private health insurance to rely only upon the public system. Lastly, I feel if any form of graft or corruption is detected the penalty should be many times worse than for ordinary folk, because their effect is far greater.

Why would anybody then take on a position of such responsibility without any of the usual incentives? They would do it only for the best reasons. At the moment we have set up the system to almost guarantee that we will attract the most unprincipled types in society. So bad is this that it is a major surprise to us when we actually get someone in power who tries to do good and speaks truth.

We can never really expect an honest government unless we change the system that puts people into office.

[greylock]

This would give them very real incentive to improve the conditions there.

Sadly, there's a real sense of "pay peanuts, get monkeys".
Local councils, for example.
Politicians are already modestly paid (ex-entitlements) compared to the private sector.
Sad, but true.

Why would anybody then take on a position of such responsibility without any of the usual incentives? They would do it only for the best reasons.

Sadly, the experience of local councils (which have little or no renumeration) suggests that is not the case.

We can never really expect an honest government unless we change the system that puts people into office.

I wish I had your faith in humanity.

[miriam_e]

Sadly, there's a real sense of "pay peanuts, get monkeys".

The open source movement shows this is no longer true. Given a good standard of living, people tend to want to do something with their lives. Take away the greed attraction and public office should attract people who want to do good.

Local councils are often mired in bureaucracy, small-time power, and corruption. The power and corruption can be handled by my suggestion. I'm not sure what to do about bureaucracy -- that is a whole other problem.

:) I don't think I have an unreasonably high view of humanity. We have our bad sides, sure, but we are capable of so much good that it sometimes just takes my breath away. Some of the recent TED Talks are examples of what I mean:

# Alex Steffen - the shareable future of cities
http://download.ted.com/talks/AlexSteffen_2011G.mp4

# Harald Haas - wireless data from every light
http://download.ted.com/talks/HaraldHaas_2011G.mp4

# Mark Pagel - how language transformed humanity
http://download.ted.com/talks/MarkPagel_2011G.mp4

# Philip Zimbardo - The demise of guys?
http://download.ted.com/talks/PhilipZimbardo_2011.mp4

# Tim Harford - trial and error and the god complex
http://download.ted.com/talks/TimHarford_2011G.mp4

# Paul Bloom - the origins of pleasure
http://download.ted.com/talks/PaulBloom_2011G.mp4

# Josette Sheeran - ending hunger now
http://download.ted.com/talks/JosetteSheeran_2011G.mp4

# Ellen Gustafson - obesity + hunger = 1 global food issue
http://download.ted.com/talks/EllenGustafson_2010X.mp4

# Louise Fresco on feeding the whole world
http://download.ted.com/talks/LouiseFresco_2009.mp4

# Geoffrey West - the surprising math of cities and corporations
http://download.ted.com/talks/GeoffreyWest_2011G.mp4

# Rory Stewart - time to end the war in afghanistan
British MP Rory Stewart walked across Afghanistan after 9/11, talking with citizens and warlords alike. Now, a decade later, he asks: Why are Western and coalition forces still fighting there? He shares lessons from past military interventions that worked -- Bosnia, for instance -- and shows that humility and local expertise are the keys to success.
http://download.ted.com/talks/RoryStewart_2011G.mp4

# Markus Fischer - a robot that flies like a bird
A small team has done something people have wanted to do for thousands of years!
http://download.ted.com/talks/MarkusFischer_2011G.mp4

# Kevin Slavin - how algorithms shape our world
http://download.ted.com/talks/KevinSlavin_2011G.mp4

# Thandie Newton - embracing otherness embracing myself
http://download.ted.com/talks/ThandieNewton_2011G.mp4

# Amber Case - We are all cyborgs now
http://download.ted.com/talks/AmberCase_2010W.mp4

# Brene Brown - The power of vulnerability
http://download.ted.com/talks/BreneBrown_2010X.mp4


# Maajid Nawaz - a global culture to fight extremism
http://download.ted.com/talks/MaajidNawaz_2011G.mp4

# Wael Ghonim - Inside the Egyptian revolution
http://download.ted.com/talks/WaelGhonim_2011X.mp4

# Adam Ostrow - after your final status update
http://download.ted.com/talks/AdamOstrow_2011G.mp4

# Nadia Al-Sakkaf - see Yemen through my eyes
http://download.ted.com/talks/NadiaAlSakkaf_2011G.mp4

(I'm still downloading the last 4 in this list and haven't watched them, but reading their blurbs they promise to open my mind still further.)