Gedink ons
land is vrot van korrupsie? Die huidige finansiële krisis in eerste-wêreld,
hoogs-ontwikkelde lande van die wêreld soos Amerika, Engeland en Duitsland, is
veroorsaak deur onvoorstelbare korrupsie deur die voorste besigheidsmense op
ons planeet.
Die
korrupsie in hierdie hoogs “beskaafde” lande is so massief dat dit die
korrupsie in ons eie land na kabouter
Maand na
maand ontdek ons hoe onverbiddellik mense deur gierigheid gedryf word.
In die
nuutste skandaal moet Barclays Bank in Engeland ‘n boete van miljarde rande
betaal omdat hulle rentekoerse gekonkel het. In die proses is die bankwese se
reputasie grondiglik geskaad.
Dit is nou
ons ontwikkelde wêreld wat vinger wys na die korrupsie in arm lande, natuurlik
ook Afrika.
Voordat ‘n
mens hier by ons ook weer vinger wys oor die ellendige situasie waarin ons
hoogs beskaafde samelewings hulle bevind, moet ‘n mens hand in eie boesem
steek. Nie in die boesem van korrupte politici nie, maar ‘n bietjie naderby, in
eie boesem.
Ek lees
vanoggend ‘n artikel in die NYT wat wys hoedat elkeen van ons as goeie,
ordentlike mense ‘n pad geloop het wat ons ver weg geneem het van wat
ordentlik, beskaafd en goed beteken.
Terwyl ek
die artikel lees, herken ek veel daarvan ook in ons midde. In die gejaag om te
presteer en ‘n goeie lewe te voer, draai mense se belangstelling om hul self en
soek hulle hul eie voordeel. Die wete dat ‘n mens ‘n verantwoordelikheid
teenoor ander en jou gemeenskap het, speel ‘n mindere rol in jou bestaan. In
die gejaag om te presteer, om bo uit te kom, skep ons ‘n samelewing waarin
armes nog armer word, groter ongelykheid tussen mense geskep word en ons lewens
oorheers word deur die drang om te presteer.
Watter
geestelike ingesteldheid sou hierdie gedrewenheid kon verander? Wat verander ‘n
mens sodat jou lewe nie om jouself en jou uitnemendheid draai nie? Was dit
werklik beter in vroeëre tye? Het ons voorgeslagte ‘n “roeping” gehad waarin
hulle hul eie belang minder geag het as die van ander?
Hier is die
artikel van David Brooks in vandag se NYT:
Through most of the 19th and 20th centuries, the Protestant Establishment sat atop the American power structure. A relatively small network of white Protestant men dominated the universities, the world of finance, the local country clubs and even high government service.
Over the past half–century, a more diverse and meritocratic elite has replaced the Protestant Establishment. People are more likely to rise on the basis of grades, test scores, effort and performance.
Yet, as this meritocratic elite has taken over institutions, trust in them has plummeted. It’s not even clear that the brainy elite is doing a better job of running them than the old boys’ network. Would we say that Wall Street is working better now than it did 60 years ago? Or government? The system is more just, but the outcomes are mixed. The meritocracy has not fulfilled its promise.
Christopher Hayes of MSNBC and The Nation believes that the problem is inherent in the nature of meritocracies. In his book, “Twilight of the Elites,” he argues that meritocratic elites may rise on the basis of grades, effort and merit, but, to preserve their status, they become corrupt. They create wildly unequal societies, and then they rig things so that few can climb the ladders behind them. Meritocracy leads to oligarchy.
Hayes points to his own elite training ground, Hunter College High School in New York City. You have to ace an entrance exam to get in, but affluent parents send their kids to rigorous test prep centers and now few poor black and Latino students can get in.
Baseball players get to the major leagues through merit, but then some take enhancement drugs to preserve their status. Financiers work hard to get jobs at the big banks, but then some rig the game for their own mutual benefit.
Far from being the fairest of all systems, he concludes, the meritocracy promotes gigantic inequality and is fundamentally dysfunctional. No wonder institutional failure has been the leitmotif of our age.
It’s a challenging argument but wrong. I’d say today’s meritocratic elites achieve and preserve their status not mainly by being corrupt but mainly by being ambitious and disciplined. They raise their kids in organized families. They spend enormous amounts of money and time on enrichment. They work much longer hours than people down the income scale, driving their kids to piano lessons and then taking part in conference calls from the waiting room.
Phenomena like the test-prep industry are just the icing on the cake, giving some upper-middle-class applicants a slight edge over other upper-middle-class applicants. The real advantages are much deeper and more honest.
The corruption that has now crept into the world of finance and the other professions is not endemic to meritocracy but to the specific culture of our meritocracy. The problem is that today’s meritocratic elites cannot admit to themselves that they are elites.
Everybody thinks they are countercultural rebels, insurgents against the true establishment, which is always somewhere else. This attitude prevails in the Ivy League, in the corporate boardrooms and even at television studios where hosts from Harvard, Stanford and Brown rail against the establishment.
As a result, today’s elite lacks the self-conscious leadership ethos that the racist, sexist and anti-Semitic old boys’ network did possess. If you went to Groton a century ago, you knew you were privileged. You were taught how morally precarious privilege was and how much responsibility it entailed. You were housed in a spartan 6-foot-by-9-foot cubicle to prepare you for the rigors of leadership.
The best of the WASP elites had a stewardship mentality, that they were temporary caretakers of institutions that would span generations. They cruelly ostracized people who did not live up to their codes of gentlemanly conduct and scrupulosity. They were insular and struggled with intimacy, but they did believe in restraint, reticence and service.
Today’s elite is more talented and open but lacks a self-conscious leadership code. The language of meritocracy (how to succeed) has eclipsed the language of morality (how to be virtuous). Wall Street firms, for example, now hire on the basis of youth and brains, not experience and character. Most of their problems can be traced to this.
If you read the e-mails from the Libor scandal you get the same sensation you get from reading the e-mails in so many recent scandals: these people are brats; they have no sense that they are guardians for an institution the world depends on; they have no consciousness of their larger social role.
The difference between the Hayes view and mine is a bit like the difference between the French Revolution and the American Revolution. He wants to upend the social order. I want to keep the current social order, but I want to give it a different ethos and institutions that are more consistent with its existing ideals.
