By William Bond
(Originally posted on the Rasa Von Werder blog)
Popular culture tells us that it’s alpha people who rule the world. But these alpha types are generally the most, aggressive and deceitful people on the planet. So many are the worse types of people we have, that are ruling our world. It’s why we live in a unfair world of conflict, war, genocide and oppression. So we would be better off is loving people rule our world instead. But there is a common belief that; “love is a weakness.” and there is good reason why people believe this. Loving people will put the needs of others before their own and are not assertive or aggressive with other people. Because of this, some unscrupulous people will take full advantage of loving people and exploit them. Its for this reason, many people assume that loving people are weak, but is this true?
We generally find loving behaviour more in women than in men and there is a evolutionary reason for this. It is known that women have a maternal instinct, where women not only want to give birth to children but also want to care and look after them until they are capable of looking after themselves. We see this behaviour not only in human females but in mammals and birds. The reason for this is that if mothers of many animal species didn’t care for their young, the species they belong to, would go instinct. So even though we assume that love in a weakness, if mothers didn’t have a this powerful instinct to care and look after their children, the human race would die out. But we find that women not only have an instinct to care and nurture their own children but also the children of other mothers. As well as caring for the sick, elderly, animals and men. So in theory we would all be better of if we had maternal minded women rule the world. But unfortunately it’s not as easy as that, as we seem to live in a system where loving people are excluded from power, whether they are male or female.
So we live in a world where loving people are thought of as weak while selfish and assertive people are seen as strong. But unfortunately we pay a heavy price for these beliefs because we end up with selfish and ruthless people ruling our world. When we look at history we see its a story of conflict, wars, genocide as well as a huge disparity of wealth between rich and poor. This is because we generally have selfish and uncaring people in positions of power. A ruler who desires to start a war to conquer another country obviously doesn't care about the harm a war will do to the people he is invading. Or even the harm it might do to the people of his own country, if the war goes badly wrong. Likewise, a government who follows policies that greatly benefit only a small ruling elite at the expense of the majority of the population, also clearly doesn’t care about the people they rule.
This has been the story throughout history and its still true today. Where in the 21st century we still have wars and genocide, as well as a huge gap between rich and poor. So what can we do to change this? And the obvious answer in democratic countries is to vote into power loving politicians who care about the people they rule. But off course there are big problems in trying to do this. It is claimed that the USA has; “the best democracy that money can buy.” Unfortunately this is not only true of the USA but in all Western democratic countries, where corruption in politics is commonplace. So even if the voters, voted for a politician who genuinely cares about people. He or she will be side-lined from any position of power by the majority of corrupt politicians. Who don’t want anyone upsetting their gravy train.
A politician that did work out that people do want caring and loving people in positions of power was Jacinda Ardern in New Zealand. She campaigned on the basis that she was a genuinely caring person and through this became Prime Minster. But once she was in power, she proved to be a normal, lying, scheming, two-faced politician. Who never intended to keep her election promises and did the opposite to what she said she would do. This made her so unpopular with the people, that her own party had to get rid of her before the next election. But this does prove that people do want to be ruled by loving and caring people, but what prevents this from happening, is corruption.
The point is that if we were able to get rid of corruption, and had a political party who did campaign on the basis they are genuine loving people who would care about the people they rule. And then when they got into power, kept all their election promises. So they ruled for the benefit of the majority of people and not for the benefit of the billionaire class. Then in every election the people would always vote for a party like this. So if politicians did do this, then love becomes a strength and not a weakness.
But of course getting rid of corruption is not easy, but it has been recognized world-wide that corruption is what destroys all countries. For instance we have seen over the last 50 years the decline in power of all Western counties. The main reason for this that at the beginning of 1980s Western countries started the policy of, “deregulation”. Where it was claimed that too many regulations stifled business. But what they didn’t point out was that these regulations were there to prevent corruption. So by getting rid of these laws has allowed corruption to thrive, until it took over the whole political system of the Western world. Bringing about the decline, in the power of Western democracies. Why corruption is destroying Western countries is that wealthy entrepreneurs no longer invest their money into manufacturing. Because they can make far more money in, insider trading, share buybacks and other dodgy money-making schemes. So the manufacturing base of Western countries has declined through neglect and has gone East.
Meanwhile the government of China recognized that it was corruption that was hampering the grown of their economy. So they started a campaign to stamp out corruption, to the degree where anyone found guilty of corruption can get life imprisonment or are executed. Not even billionaires are immune from this. China has executed 14 yuan billionaires between 2003 and 2011 on corruption charges and other crimes. This would never happen in Western countries where billionaires are above the law and can literately get away with murder. It is the anti-corruption drive that is one of the main reasons for China’s growth and prosperity. Because in China for anyone to bribe a government official is seen as a capital offence resulting in life imprisonment or the death penalty. While in Western countries it’s seen as normal business.
Which means that if Western governments fail to address the corruption problem, then the decline of all Western countries will continue. So if we look at it in the long term, countries that stamp out corruption will always be more successful than countries that allow it to continue and flourish. China is able to stamp out corruption because it’s a dictatorship and its government saw the billionaire class as a threat to their power. The trouble is with this, is that this doesn’t guarantee that a future Chinese government will think the same way. A future Chinese leader might not understand the dangers of corruption and allow it to thrive bringing ruin to his country. Then unfortunately the people won’t be able to do anything about it because China is a dictatorship. Although it has to be said this can happen in a democracy, like we saw at the beginning of the 1980s. Where the disastrous policies like; deregulation and “trickle-down economics” were adopted. Which greatly benefited the wealthy at the expense of the common people and caused the decline in Western manufacturing.
So we can see clearly that corruption will lead to the total disintegration of Western countries which will in time force them to change the way they govern themselves. In that time of change, we have to stick to what works and understand what doesn’t work. So the number one item on this list will be to stamp out corruption. Then create a system where honest, loving people get into positions of power. This can only be guaranteed in a democracy. Some people have claim that the best type of government is a benevolent dictatorship. Which in theory, sounds like a good idea, but no one can explain how to ensure we get benevolent people in positions of power. This is why we need democracy because even though it can be subverted by corruption. Its still a method where the common people will have some say in how they are governed.
So to achieve a better form of government we need three things: A democratic system, then to have a type of constitution where all forms of corruption are stamped out. Then finally a willingness of voters to vote into power honest, decent politicians who care about the people they rule. It’s true that there will be other Jacinda Ardern type politicians, who claim to be loving and caring people but are in truth just lying, two-faced politicians. But in a system that stamps out corruption, then this type of politician cannot thrive and will be soon be found out.
In mainstream politics, people debate which is the best political system. So some people might advocate capitalism while others will advocate communism. But to me its more; “the singer not the song.” Whatever system we have, if the rulers are corrupt, stupid or even insane, they will destroy the country they are ruling. While intelligent, competent and caring rulers will ensure the country thrives and the people enjoy a high standard of living. We can see this in recent history, in the time of the Soviet Union the Capitalist system of Western countries worked better than the Soviet communist system which finally collapsed in 1990. But in the 21st century we are finding that the Chinese communist system is working better than Capitalist system of Western countries. It’s claimed that the reason for this is that, Chinese rulers are very pragmatic and are more interested in what works and doesn’t work. While Western rulers are blinded by ideology. A less than charitable reason is that it’s also claimed that; “China is ruled by engineers and scientists, while the West is ruled by lawyers and clowns.”
So clearly the type of rulers we have, is far more important than the political system they use. This is why we need to get rid of the idea that, “love is a weakness” and instead realise that we want loving, caring and competent people ruling our world and do everything we can, to ensure that this happens.
