My wife lost her purse in a crowded local superstore recently. There was quite
a lot of money in it, plus credit cards, etc. When she realized she had done
that, she dashed back to the store and to the lost and found counter. She was
handed her purse. Everything was in it. Nothing had been taken.
Ed
----- Original Message -----
From: Keith Hudson
To: RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME DISTRIBUTION,EDUCATION ; de Bivort Lawrence
Sent: Thursday, November 29, 2012 4:39 AM
Subject: [Futurework] Extraordinary honesty
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: 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
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