In the past couple of years, I’ve met a few MPs (and the PM, too, through some odd luck) and I am quite convinced of their good intentions and magnanimous spirit. I will dare to say this- person to person, I do believe that there are people in government who genuinely do care. I can’t speak on behalf of everyone, but I have a few favourites (yes, PAP members!) and the conviction and emotion in their voices as they speak about their constituents is unmistakable.
But here’s the deal, and I’m saying this to them as much as I’m saying it to you:
As long as they’re earning much more than most of the rest of us, we are going to perceive them differently.
This isn’t personal, this is simply the reality of the matter and it must be acknowledged.
It doesn’t matter even if one lives humbly, buys cheap clothes, sends his or her children to neighbourhood schools. If you earn a whopping salary, people are going to perceive you differently. This is a fact. I would love to be paid to do public service. To be honest, all I really want is enough money to pay for a HDB, food on the table, health insurance, have a few thousand dollars of emergency savings in case of a rainy day and I’m happy. Beyond that, I would gladly spend all my time and energy serving others. Pay me a minster’s salary, and I promise I will take all the lessons and classes I need to project a sympathetic image.
Maybe I’m missing something here. Anyway, I’d never make it in Parliament in Singapore. I have too much of a potty mouth and I don’t have the academic credentials. Also, I wonder if I can impact the world in a broader and more powerful fashion than just locally. That’s idealistic, I know, but I’m young and naive.
Somebody once commented that Shanmugam, the Minister for Law, essentially took a massive pay cut when he chose to be Minister. I don’t know enough to comment, and I do believe that it’s very possible that Ministers might be making more in the private sector. I don’t know what to think about this. I think our entire global economy overpays a lot of people. Our incentives are warped all over the world. Why does anybody need so much money, really?
Things to think about. Your thoughts?
(Incomplete)
Hi Visa, this is not a very coherent response but off the top of my head:
1. Money is power.
2. If kind people (or rather, group-oriented, society-oriented, rather than self-aggrandizers) spend their money on helping society, while unkind ones (self-oriented, self-aggrandizers) accumulate wealth, we will see a dynamic of power accruing to the unkind, selfish people.
3. When you have more and more self-aggrandizers wielding power (undermining democracy, controlling information), the way society is structured today starts to make sense.
4. I think this dynamic has been going on with little disruption for some decades, both globally and in Singapore. (some anthropologists and archaeologists think this dynamic has been a constant factor shaping how societies live since people settled down and could produce surpluses, e.g. http://www.psmag.com/culture/the-evolution-of-fairness-45681/).
5. This dynamic is implicit in ideologies like meritocracy (Chris Hayes in Twilight of the Elites kindof says this), or in the kind of capitalism (neoliberal?) practiced in the world in the past few decades. It becomes part of the narrative people tell themselves, becomes woven into social norms, etc (with some judicious nudging from the elites and their bought mouthpieces).
6. Sometimes, this dynamic gets frustrated, either violently or not, like David Graeber puts it, peasant revolts, land reform, debt cancellations, emancipating debt peons, etc (Jubilees, general amnesties on ascending thrones, the French Revolution, Communism). Sometimes it doesn’t, and people just suffer and societies become uncompetitive or even unviable and collapse (maybe ancient Sparta, Jared Diamond’s Easter Island, Anasazi Indians, etc, perhaps the slave-owning American south). Of course there’re many more factors at play – no controlled experiments in real life!
7. Looking at the world today, the popular demonstrations taking place in Europe, in the Middle-east, in Turkey, from Tahrir Square to Taksim Square, in even Sweden, at Hong Lim Park, in Malaysia, I wonder if we will see something momentous in our lifetimes. Or not.
Wow, what a rant. FWIW…
BTW I lurk around here quite a bit, and it’s nice to read your writing! 🙂
This looks like an awesome comment and I’m going to come back to read it properly later!
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