11 Feb 1999, 870 words
If we want to improve the quality of our politicians, their salary levels must remain exactly where they are.
I don't usually write about matters of governance, although most of my satirical columns in the Weekend Independent deal with politics. (It saves me having to make up the jokes.) But as regards this matter of increased salaries for MPs, the newspaper editorials and informed commentators seem to be overlooking the most obvious points. I find this very puzzling.
Take, for example, the main argument put forward by several people: that higher salaries will lessen corrupt practices by those who hold political office. Really? Why, pray tell, would it do that? If an individual does not have an ethical code which would stop them misusing public office in the first place, a higher salary isn't going to make any difference. To besides, it's not as if the salaries MPs now get are at subsistence levels. If money prevented corrupt practices, John O' Halloran and Francis Prevatt should have become ethical exemplars after t'iefing the first few millions. And, nowadays, isn't it still some of the richest persons in the country who are perceived as being most corrupt? (I won't sneeze or ricochet.)
The second main argument put forward by those in favour of increased salaries for MPs is that high salaries are necessary in order to attract the best people to politics. It seems to me, though, that the reverse is obviously true: that high salaries are the best way of attracting the worst people to politics - i.e. people who cannot achieve success in other areas and therefore see political office as a means of extending their private interests.
This is why somebody once said that the desire for public office should automatically disqualify a man from holding it. The kind of person who would get into politics because it is financially remunerative is more, not less, likely to misuse public office. For that reason, attracting the best people to run for political office may actually require us to keep salaries lower than private sector levels. This could help weed out pernicious candidates, in that those who put themselves forward for office would either not be motivated solely by money or would have already achieved sufficient success in private life that they need not rely on their MP's salaries alone. Admittedly, the opposite often happens now: that those who have failed in the private sector turn to public office. Still, the idea that public servants' salaries should in some way be commensurate with those in the private sector has no basis I know of. After all, the President of the United States gets only US$200,000 a year; Bill Gates makes more than that every fifteen minutes.
The corollary to the second argument is that high salaries will help ensure efficiency from our politicians. Even if this were so, one could justify increases only if our electoral and parliamentary system were a lot more democratic than it is - in other words, if we could fire MPs and Ministers for non-performance before general elections. Besides, Ministers are not competent of themselves: they have the assistance of many experts. What Ministers are supposed to do is ensure that the interests of the populace are served as best as possible, which is an ethical duty, which brings us right back to my first point: can you buy ethical conduct?
What all our commentators seem to have forgotten, or don't believe, is that people do not work only for money. Maybe there are too many Marxists among them, so they perceive citizens only as economic animals; or maybe they intend to seek political office themselves one day. But, while every human being wants power, every human being doesn't necessarily want power of the financial kind. All normal people want to feel elitist in some way, whether within their family, peer group, religion or profession. The person who is indifferent to power, as Bertrand Russell once pointed out, is also indifferent to his fellow man. Money is a primary type of elitism but politics provides other types, such as prestige and command. Since power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely, it seems only common sense not to make the attractions of political office too rich.
It is quite clear, however, that our elites in all spheres - save perhaps the artistic one - measure their own worth mainly by their ability to spend. That is why the absurd Mervyn Assam feels absolutely no embarrassment about complaining in Parliament that he takes home $4,000 a month, as if that sum does not support entire families in this country. The only sensible change in parliamentarians' salaries I can see would be to increase those of MPs and reduce those of Ministers. But the unquestioning support in most quarters for the SRC rationale reveals a materialist ethic so pervasive it is virtually unconscious.
Of course, I may be naive in assuming that there is a cadre of competent persons in our country who would be willing to become involved in politics for merely mid-level salaries. But, if such citizens don't exist, there is little hope for our politics anyhow.
Copyright ©1999 Kevin Baldeosingh