Hi Lawry,
I've changed the thread for the purpose of this particular posting
because it concerns the subject of Islam you're interested in. It was
triggered off by your mention of Turkey where a remarkable example of
honesty occurred some 12/15 years ago. I was in a foursome touring
Turkey. One afternoon, the husband of the other couple decided he
wanted to look the university in Istanbul. On the way there, while
walking through a park he had a stroke (or something to the same
effect) which rendered him comatose. This occurred early in the
afternoon. He was still lying there in the early evening, when it was
finally realized that an ambulance needed to be called for. Meantime,
because he hadn't returned to the hotel, I'd been ringing round all
the hospitals in the city. By coincidence, the hospital I happened to
be ringing (the 19th) had just received him -- so he'd obviously been
lying in the park for several hours. When I picked him up from the
hospital a few days later he suddenly realized that he didn't have
his wallet (with a great deal of Turkish money) or his (expensive)
camera and attachments. Magically, a policeman suddenly appeared with
the very same items and handed them over. I often wonder whether my
friend's ownership of his wallet and camera would have survived a
similar event in the park of an advanced country without a
predominant Islamic culture.
Keith
. At 21:52 28/11/2012, you wrote:
Greetings, everyone,
This matter of corruption -- and especially corruption of intent --
is beautifully laid out in an extraordinary Turkish movie, Takva: a
Man's Fear of God. I don't want to give the story away by
commenting on it here, but will say that it explores this matter
deeply and with great authenticity, intelligence, and integrity.
Plus, it is a riveting movie. Our local library has a copy, and so
yours may, too. Enjoy!
Lawry
On Nov 28, 2012, at 4:38 PM, 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: <mailto:[email protected]>Keith Hudson
To: <mailto:[email protected]>RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME
DISTRIBUTION, EDUCATION ; <mailto:[email protected]>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
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