"Corruptio optimi pessima -- Corruption of the best is the worst of all." (Cicero)
And I agree that not everyone has a price. Arthur -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of pete Sent: Wednesday, November 28, 2012 6:06 PM To: RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME DISTRIBUTION, EDUCATION Subject: Re: [Futurework] There's more there than I thought It's easy to be incoruptible, and there is no shortage of incorruptible idealistic people in the world. But they are by nature not going to be found in positions of power and influence, where they would be elbowed out by the less admirable very early on in the process. You might find the odd one writing a book, but generally they are going to be people who live with a small footprint. Despite the constant chipping away at the concept by vocal cynics, unassailably ethical behaviour is alive and well and living in people who know who they are and what is of real value in the world. And no, not everyone has a price. -Pete On Wed, 28 Nov 2012, Ed Weick wrote: > Perhaps the only way to be a completely incorruptible person in > today's world is to sit on a mountaintop or to isolate oneself in a > little stone cell in the depths of a monastery, but even that may not > work. There really isn't much room for purists and idealists. > > Ed > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: Keith Hudson > To: RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME DISTRIBUTION, EDUCATION ; Ed Weick > Sent: Wednesday, November 28, 2012 12:12 PM > Subject: Re: [Futurework] There's more there than I thought > > > Ed, > > The big difference between corruption of senior politicians and officials in China and that in the West is that the former speak about it openly as being a (continuing) problem while the latter pretend that it only happens rarely. It takes slightly different forms in the two countries. In China, bribes (usually in the form of shares) are given to close relatives. In the West it's more of a nod to the recipient that if he "helps" someone he'll be well looked after once he's retired. There's nothing truer than the old saying: "Every man has his price". Even if the price is reputational rather than financial, it is never the case (IMO) that an attempt at bribery is met with indifference. > > In the present Tory government in the UK it would be my opinion that most of present senior cabinet, including Cameron, plus several Permanent Secretaries (the top officials in civil service departments) have been bribed with the promise of good jobs later (e.g. directorships, consultancies, top jobs with the European Union, etc). In the previous government under Labour, it was more of a case of the politicians 'consolidating' hundreds of key supporters with high salaries and perks in new 'quasi non-governmental organizations' (quangos) which carry out newly-invented civil service type functions. In the case of the previous prime minister, Tony Blair, he's been living off several different streams of income ever since he retired. > > Psychologists tell us that children tell fibs and devise strategies designed to hoodwink others from only three years of age. This suggests that deviousness is built into us genetically. This ability to deceive is particularly necessary in any ambitiousness male not wishing to upset males of higher social ranking (until the right moment to strike comes along!). Sensible governmental constitutions in the future will not appeal to idealistic abstractions but how to make its financial operations as open as possible. > > Keith > > > At 15:52 28/11/2012, you wrote: > > Keith Hudson and I had a brief exchange on the merits of Chrystia Freeland's "Plutocrats". Both of us were bored after the first forty pages or so. He suggested that I read the concluding chapter and give up on the rest of the book. I almost did that but then decided I'd look at the book here and there and, lo and behold, I've found some interesting things. Thus far I've read some of the material on "rent-seekers", plutocrats who capture an increasing portion of existing wealth rather than producing "value-added" wealth themselves. The American and European financial sectors are outstanding examples. Working in an environment of decreasing regulation, many people in the field have become very rich via the invention and refinement of a large variety of securities and by shifting much of the risk of doing so onto the public sector, knowing full well that government would see them as too big to fail and bail them out if things went wrong. Things did indeed go wrong! in 2008, and with some exceptions like Lehman Brothers, government did bail them out, imposing enormous costs on the public sector. > > I guess those of us who've paid any attention to the economy in the past few years already knew much of that, but Freeland includes a lot of extra information and detail that we couldn't have known unless we were journalists in the middle of it all, as she was. However, there was one thing that was new to me in what I read this morning. That was the role played by "rent-seekers" in China's conversion from what was supposed to have been a workers' paradise into plutocrat run state capitalism. According to Freeland, China is as corrupt at the top as America, Europe and oligarchic Russia. I found that rather painful because it wasn't supposed to be like that. When I was young and highly idealistic, I followed the Chinese Revolution very closely and greatly admired Mao Zedong. Mao was going to show us all what the world could really be like. Well, what seems to have transpired in reality is another road to hell paved with good intentions. > > I'll quit here, but may post more as I read more bits and pieces of Freeland's book. > > Ed > _______________________________________________ > Futurework mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework > > _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [email protected] https://lists.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework
