![[Ed says Nay]](http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/4958/1794/320/dont_trust.jpg "Ed says Nay")
Dallas Morning News | Editorials:“Conservative writer Andrew Ferguson said the 1994 election posed the question: "Would the Republicans change Washington, or would it be the other way around?" Jack Abramoff – that, unfortunately, is your answer.”
Ed Cognoski responds:
This gets it all wrong. It implies that the Republicans came to Washington with integrity in the first place. Instead, it was through the machinations of campaign architects like Karl Rove and, for the first President Bush, Lee Atwater, that Republicans captured the White House. And it was former Congressman Newt Gingrich (R-GA) who was the architect of the Contract with America that sold voters a bill of goods in 1994. No, the Republicans gained power through ruthless political hardball, not by nominating a slate of honorable, honest citizen-candidates. It's time to clean house, all right. Vote them all out, either for being corrupt themselves or for tolerating corruption in their midst.
1 comment:
Here's my take: 'Greed is not good'
In Australia, we have had many privatisations and demutualisations in the last twenty years. The changes in corporate structure were made for good reasons. The problem was that the sleepy government organizations and mutuals were too ineffecient. Workers could be lazy, because their jobs were secure, and there was no great incentive to work hard. The workers weren't serving others, but serving themselves - by being lazy.
So the corporate structures were changed, and these changes worked. Corporations now work for the profit of owners, and this profit is shared with workers. This potential for profit has driven managers to squeeze out inefficiencies with a view to their own gain. So the problem of laziness is no longer the problem in corporate Australia. We have a different problem.
You see, what has not changed is the inclination of the workers and managers to serve themselves rather than others. The difference is that workers are now driven by greed. Rather than laziness, the Australian form of self-service is the chase after the dollar. More and more, the work-practice of our labour force expresses their belief that greed is good. This is a problem, because work is not meant to be about greed, it is meant to be for service.
If we agree that greed is not good, can we cure this plague? We can't cure the heart of greed by adding more rules - but can we do something at a structural level? Socialism and communism manifestly fail, partly because communism involves reverting to the old government owned and run corporate structures. If we reverted to these, laziness would again triumph as the expression of workers' self-interest. So what can we do to tame our current spiral into materialism? One answer is that our hearts need changing, so that we want to serve others. That is the primary answer. But our hearts will never be changed completely - there will always be the tendency for people to serve themselves rather than others. So what structural change might we make to help us defeat the greed-is-good brigade?
I want to make a suggestion. It is a little detailed, so strap in. But it is a test for you, the reader. The test is this: If you reject my suggestion as bad, do you reject it because you really think that greed is good? If that is your reason, then in my opinion, you have failed this test.
So why not structure society so that more work must is others-centred: The maximum take home pay in any year is set at about $50000 per person (adjusted for family size, marital status etc.). Any extra that you earn is set aside into a 'superannuation-style' account (owned by you, but not accessible until a later date). This account may be used in certain circumstances: It can be used by the owner whenever their earnings drop below $50000 that year. The owner may use the account to top up that year's earnings to the maximum $50000 figure. The account may also be used as a deposit on a house (up to say $150000 can be used in this way over a lifetime). It may be used to donate funds to causes deemed not in the direct interest of the owner. The owner chooses where these donations go. These donations would be vetted by a randomly selected person from the community (with recourse to a second person if the first says no). These 'checkers' will confirm that the donation is indeed others-centred.
This system works against both the evils I have mentioned above. We retain the capitalism where corporate structures allow people to push hard for personal profit. This leaves the incentive for people to work hard: If someone wants to earn their lifetime of wage income in five years, they can try. So those looking to provide for themselves will still be motivated to work hard. The same goes for those aiming to make money for the benefit of others - they can make bundles and give it all away. So the 'left-wing' evils of sleepy mutuals and government organizations are avoided.
On the other hand, citizens can no longer work to spend millions on their own pleasures. This will not be possible. So those at the top of our corporations will have severely restricted ability to sacrifice others for their own benefit. The 'right-wing' evils of money-hungry stop-at-nothing tyrant bosses will be avoided. And so the problems of today will be mitigated (although not removed)
The details need to be worked out, but the point is simple: our work would become biased towards others-centred service.
Note that it would still be possible to be paid a million dollars a year. Those who want to earn such large sums and give the money away will stay in our country. Those who want to spend it all on themselves will leave. I think we'll do better without them.
Note that this is not rejection of capitalism. We would still have private ownership, free markets, and laissez faireism - the defining features of capitalism.
I'd love readers to post problems with this political structure, and to make it better. However, I finish with my original challenge: do you reject this system because you believe greed is good? If you do, you fail my test. For greed is not good, it is killing our country (and it's killing yours too.)
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