A Blueprint for Changing Politics

Last week, we saw why politics, the way it is currently structured in democratic countries, is likely to attract corrupt, low-intelligence, low-caliber, and low-integrity people. What is the way ahead?

First, we must accept what is not working. Something done consistently for one hundred or four hundred years also needs to be changed and improved. One big issue faced by democracies today is the emergence of two parties that divide the society to perfection. From Bush-Gore to Trump-Hillary, USA has achieved an astounding equality in its division. Two hate camps, amplified and inflamed by social media, get formed. Their aim is to attack the thinking and actions of the rival camp irrespective of the argument. A woman’s right to abortion is no longer a moral issue. If you support a republican camp, you must oppose abortion. Guns kill, but as a Republican you must ensure their proliferation. Brexit can neither happen nor un-happen because May and Corbyn have been trading insults from their dispatch boxes for the last three years. The Commons’ layout facilitates their slanging match (at a distance of 8 feet, reportedly to prevent a member from thrusting his 4-feet sword into his opponent).

Is this how governance was supposed to be?

Compare this to a giant corporation. Microsoft and Apple are a nearly a trillion dollar companies. Walmart and McDonalds employ more than two million each. Running such companies is like running a country. Do any of these companies create two management groups, one to suggest policy matters and another to oppose it? Can you imagine a Board Room of Cisco, where a CEO and a shadow CEO, shout at each other like soccer hooligans?

If companies are not governed this way, why countries? Would you run a company based on populism? Coke has Pepsi as a key rival. But they are not part of the same business. In the 1990s, I worked for British American Tobacco. Its chairman Sir Patrick Sheehey, an elderly corporate tyrant, in his finite wisdom decided that the different divisions of the company should compete against one another. In Moscow, where I worked, the British (BATUKE),  American (Brown & Williamson), German (BAT Deutschland) and Brazilian (Souza Cruz) all fought with one another, even set up different offices and hid information from one another. Sheehey’s replacement stopped that nonsense and merged all the divisions into a single company that prospered as a result.

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Of course, when we talk of a single party-politics, we think of China. Democracies don’t wish to create autocratic monsters not subjected to criticism from opposition. But if the ‘two-camp-dogfight’, a modern democratic practice, comes at the cost of progress and development, reforms become necessary. Before addressing the issue of dangers of dictatorship, let me suggest reforms based on the points I raised last week.

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First, qualifications for a politician. Under current system age and residence. Nothing else.

We expect anyone servicing us to have the necessary professional education and training. Remember doctors and pilots; we will not entrust our life into their hands unless we knew they were licensed to practice. For politicians at all levels, graduation must be made mandatory. An MBA or PhD desirable. Competitive exams can be formulated to get the best candidates from the country. A finance minister must have finance qualifications and experience. Would you recruit a BA with geography or history as a company’s CFO?

Canada, to my knowledge, is the only country with the highest number of cabinet members with relevant qualifications. Jane Philpott, the Minister of Health, is a qualified medical doctor. Kirsty Duncan, the Minister of Science, is a scientist. Bill Morneau, the finance minister, has a Masters’ degree from LSE (the London School of Economics). Before entering politics, he was the President and CEO of a business firm. Harjit Sajjan, a Sikh migrant from India, during his military career was deployed in Bosnia and Afghanistan. He is now Canada’s defence minister. And the list is not complete.

Insisting on high qualifications also raises the lower age limit to thirty or so. If work experience is required, it goes up further.

An upper age limit is needed. I suggest 60. It will make politics younger. Old politicians sign policies that are unlikely to affect them. In the Brexit referendum, older voters demanded UK leave the EU, but the tragic consequence will be faced by the young Brits. This is unjust. Under my proposal, the two-term limit for the US president will become unnecessary. If in 2016, Obama was allowed to run for presidency again, he would have easily beaten Trump. The rules conspired to make a much older, unfit man the president sidelining a competent incumbent. This wouldn’t have happened in any business corporation.

Instead, if serious education, work experience, and rising from lower levels are mandatory, best presidential candidates will be in their late 40s. Let them rule until sixty, and retire.

 Also, like in multinational companies, any competent person from the world should be able to apply. Barack Obama can now be hired as a President or Prime minister of another country. Why let his experience go waste? Today’s world is not ready for this radical suggestion, I don’t think. But in two hundred years, this could become a norm.

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Continuing the analogy with the corporations, politicians must be paid handsomely. Pay the top federal ministers in millions and give them bonuses based on actual performance. This has a double benefit. Government can attract the best talent, and there will be less temptation for corruption. Corruption as a basis for joining politics needs to be eradicated.

Where would a government get the money from, if it wishes to pay the cabinet well? It is not a profitable corporation, people may argue. This is not true. Government has a prerogative to run any business in the country. State monopolies exist over several businesses (oil, diamonds, metals). Taxes form a key revenue item. Big, competitive salaries for politicians would form a smaller part of the budget than imagined. Currently, corrupt politicians loot the government treasury many times more. 

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Finally, just like in a company, a competent politician should have job security. It is paradoxical that a civil servant may retain his job for life. But his boss, the minister, may lose his on the day of the election results.  A minister or a member of parliament should be entitled to work until reaching sixty, and then paid pension and any other benefits contractually agreed.

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Would such a scheme give rise to dictatorship? By itself, it should not. If that were the case, most successful companies of the world would have become dictatorial. Their boards are still accountable for the performance, answerable to the shareholders. External auditors are expected to scrutinize their working and fairness of the reported results. Similar steps can be taken to install auditing bodies for checks and balances. This discussion requires a long chapter, perhaps a book. I will cover this topic in future.

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For the time being, I will return to elections, the principle of majority and their connection to democracy.

As a matter of habit, we accept the rule of the representative majority. When votes are counted, one who gets the most votes wins. In countries such as India or the UK, where FPTP (First Past the Post) system is prevalent, a candidate with as little as 5% popularity vote can win. In last month’s LokSabha elections, India elected 543 Members of parliament. That is one MP per 1.5 million voters, or per 2.5 million people. (In the UK,  one MP per 70,000 voters or 100,000 people). An Indian MP has no practical chance of a genuine interaction with his constituents.

The rule of majority also has its faults. 67% of India’s population has not passed fifth grade. It is sad, and in most cases not their fault. But in a representative democracy, 67% of the people chosen to govern India can be semi-educated as well. Proportionate representation is one thing. Governing ability is another. Once again, you will not make anyone from the 67% a pilot or a doctor, why then a politician?

It is well known that the quality of the population keeps declining, because the poorest, the less educated, the less intelligent people usually have more children than the others. As a result, the caliber of the masses keeps falling all the time. This degeneration has now crossed the tipping point. Trump and Brexit are one visible consequence.

Elections and referendums can, therefore, be dangerous. We applaud them as a result of habit. We have been trained to think that elections and majority are the backbone of democracy. They certainly are, if majority of the population has the competence and choices to make the right decisions.

Politics is an unorganized industry. It is not a profession. So, it usually attracts third-rate people from the country. Those third-rate candidates are offered as choices to the voters. More than half the voters don’t have the qualifications or caliber to understand the large governance issues. By applying the rule of majority, the worst-qualified voters elect from among the third-rate candidates.

And we still wonder why the world is in such a bad shape.

Ravi

Comedians as Rulers

“Did you read about a TV comedian becoming the President of Ukraine?” A friend sounded absolutely miffed. Volodymyr Zelensky, the 40-year old comedian actor had appeared as Ukraine’s President in a teleserial for the past four years. Now, voters have rewarded him with that role in real life.

I told my friend I wasn’t surprised at all. A buffoon afflicted with NPD (Narcissistic Personality Disorder) is the elected leader of world’s most powerful democracy. A low-intelligence woman, a living answering machine, is the Prime Minister of a democratic queendom. That woman is and is not the Prime Minister currently, a political Schrödinger’s cat if you like. A TV comedian is a better choice.

In this article, I will analyze why we end up electing such rulers to rule over us.  

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In my article Professions, hobbies and relaxation [open diary week 13 (2014)], I mentioned the four critical elements that qualify a particular activity as a profession. (a) The activity needs to be the key occupation of the person. It has to take the major chunk of the day, and several years of his working life. (b) The occupation requires specialized training and education. For example, nobody can or should practice as a doctor without attending a medical school and first working as a medical assistant/intern. (c) The job should have direct and definite monetary compensation/reward. (d) The work provides advice, products or service to other human beings. A lawyer or a Chartered accountant can’t practice their professions unless they are servicing their clients.

Let me apply those four tests to check if politics is a profession.

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First, a professional spends most of his working day and working life devoted to that particular activity. Elected politicians are, as a rule, busy the whole time. The greatest democracies have an upper and a lower house which can bicker and fight with one another perennially. In UK’s parliament, the government and the opposition are placed across one another. Procedures require them to turn up every day and scream at each other as if it was a football stadium. Like ordinary corporate employees devising schemes to “kill time” at work, politicians can engage in endless debates, at times shamelessly and openly filibuster. Elected politicians certainly have enough on the plate to keep themselves occupied if they wish to.

But what happens when that politician loses an election? What is he or she supposed to do from the next day? What happens to their salaries and perks?

Take the case of Hillary Clinton. On 9 November 2016, after the results, she was expected to be the most powerful political leader in the world. With a little luck, she would have been America’s first woman president. For the past two and a half years, and perhaps for another five and a half years, Hillary would have been super-busy, travelling the world, deciding which countries to bomb, passing executive orders, giving wicked smiles in front of cameras, taking part in the next presidential debates. Each minute of her four years, or eight years would be planned or busy. What happened instead? She lost the election, and turned into a nobody. It’s like Federer losing a match to Nadal, and then being asked not to play tennis for four years.

For Hillary, the election loss was only a psychological trauma. But most ordinary politicians, on losing an election, get thrown out of their house. One day they have handsome salaries, private staff sponsored by the govt treasury, free travel, offices in heritage buildings. The next day, they are out of their home and office, their salary and perks stop.  

UK is supposed to be a civilized State. In 1997, when 160 Tories lost their seats in a Labour landslide, one former MP drank himself to death, three suffered from depression and alcohol problems, and one MP was so financially broke, he had to take his children out of their school.

We often wonder why we get such bad politicians at all levels. What can the British voter do if the choice is between Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn (or Boris Johnson)? Why can’t decent, bright people join politics? The answer is simple. Would you or any rational person want to take up a job, where you can be de-elected at a whim? Where you can work sincerely and diligently and still lose as a result of your party or economy? Have you ever taken up a job where you can lose your salary and perks in a single day?

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The second test for a profession is that it requires specialized education and training. In all great democracies, education is strictly regulated. I was educated in three universities in three different countries. Still I am not qualified to teach in an Indian school, I need a Bed (Bachelor of Education) degree. Universities may require PhDs and corporations MBAs before candidates can attend interviews.

What is the education and training required to be a politician? To be the President of the USA? Prime Minister of UK or India? Absolutely nothing. In most cases, the requirements are age and residency (and at times absence of a criminal conviction). An illiterate idiot is capable of fulfilling those conditions. We would be petrified if the pilot of the plane we ride in hasn’t passed the necessary exams, or accumulated the necessary training hours and miles. But we are indifferent to the qualifications of the person who can rule over our lives for four, five, eight or twenty-five years. Despite my three degrees, I can’t teach at a school in India, but I am qualified to become the country’s education minister, no issues.

Donald Trump is reportedly a BS in Economics from the Wharton school. His actions suggest that he either bought the degree, or doesn’t remember any of the Economics lessons. Theresa May is a second class BA with geography. (A geography degree didn’t help her understand the Irish border issue). As an aside, Queen Elizabeth, whose annual salary is 107 million dollars, never went to a school or college. Marion Crawford, a governess taught her at the palace. When Ms Crawford wrote a memoir, The Little Princesses, it so angered the royal family, nobody ever spoke to her again. When the governess died, the palace didn’t even send a wreath to her funeral. That much for the  compassion of the longest serving monarch.

Though minimum age is prescribed, there is no upper age limit. Politicians are the only species in full control of their faculties even in their 70s and 80s. Ronald Reagan was 78 when he stepped down after eight years. Donald Trump assumed presidency in his 70s. Winston Churchill was more than eighty when he handed over the PM post to Anthony Eden. Four Indian Prime ministers, Morarji Desai, I.K.Gujral, Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Manmohan Singh were around eighty or above while still in the PM chair. Strangely, none of these octogenarians died in office. Politicians may not need qualifications, but they invariably lead a long life. Particularly those we wish to see depart early.

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The third test is the remuneration. An occupation to be called a profession must receive commensurate compensation.

 In the last decade, attempts have been made to increase the salaries of the heads of state.

The US president’s current salary is 400,000 USD per annum. (Though Trump works free of cost, compensation commensurate with his intellectual caliber).

Have you heard of Hock Tan (CEO, Broadcom: salary $103.2 million), Frank Bisignano (CEO, First data: salary $102.2 million), Michael Rapino (CEO, Live Nation Entertainment: salary $70.6 million)?

Theresa May earns Sterling Pounds 150,000 per annum. Several CEOs in her country, including Martin Sorrell (WPP: 48 million pounds), Arnold Donald (Carnival, 22.5 million pounds), Rakesh Kapoor (Reckitt Benkizer, 14.5 million pounds) earn in millions.

Narendra Modi earns USD 27,500 as his annual salary. India is a poor country. And yet Kalanithi Maran (Sun TV network: 12.5 million USD), Pawan Munjal (Hero Motocorp: 11 million USD), Sajjan Jindal (JSW steel: 7 million USD) and several other CEOs receive millions of dollars as the official annual salary.

You may think top politicians have better perks. That is not true. Big corporations take care of most expenses of their CEOs and senior managers. The CEOs routinely have private planes. I have quoted here only the official salaries. I don’t think any President or a Prime Minister gets stock options.

Do you find it odd, like I do, that unheard CEOs of unknown companies should earn in millions, while the President or the Prime Minister of their nation should earn a pittance?

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Which brings me to the fourth point: offering service to others, a hallmark of a profession.

As we saw above, salary can’t be a motive for joining politics. PhDs, MBAs, scientists, academicians have little incentive to join politics which requires no qualifications at all. A rational person would not risk unemployment every time the voter elects your opponent. What can be the motive for anybody to join politics?

First, Power. Not simply power but power that can be converted into money. You need to provide for the time you are in service, and for the time you are out of power. So you need to be even more corrupt, take more kickbacks.

Second, as a job opportunity for the uneducated, low caliber, low IQ people. No corporations will employ them. So politics is the right field. Earlier, it was assumed leaders need to be good orators. But as Trump and Theresa May have shown, being articulate is no longer a requirement.

Third, dynasts. Like the junior George Bush or India’s Gandhi family. Growing in a family of presidents or prime ministers, they witness how power can be turned into obscene amounts of money. They would like to perpetuate it by keeping the power in the family.

Fourth, extremely rich people. Low salaries and job insecurity don’t matter to them. Increasingly, the excessive spend on elections, particularly in the USA, means only superrich candidates can succeed at elections.

As a result, we usually end up having corrupt, low-intelligence, low-caliber, low-integrity politicians. As Ronald Reagan rightly said: Business and science take away the best people. Politics gets the residue.

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In the next part, I will discuss what could be done to improve the current system.

Ravi