Michael Sandel: Reith lectures and respect for politicians

This years Reith Lecture with Michael Sandel were excellent. He is extremely articulate and witty and his left of centre liberal politics were perfect for a radio 4 audience, many of which badly stung by the credit crunch.

Michael is extremely erudite and there are many jems in these four lectures.

I want to just consider the vexed issue of respect for our politicians. Michael has a grudging admiration for the political class:

SUE LAWLEY: And you didn’t wind up becoming a politician either. You became a political philosopher. What would you say to people who said you took the easier option; that it’s easier to be high-minded in theory than in practice?

MICHAEL SANDEL: I think that being in elective politics, being a politician is an extremely demanding job. And so for all of the shenanigans and misdeeds of politicians, I do think that they are engaged in what potentially is a noble exercise and they do, most of them, make great sacrifices to engage in it.

A few years ago I have a Tory backbencher gave a very insightful interview on Woman's Hour, this blustering public school type was going on about MPs pay being total inadequate. This was of course in comparison to his "CEO peers" in private enterprise.

The thing which really struck me about this interview was this was not the standard banter of the Today Program (which to me is dull and leaves me cold), for some reason on Woman's Hour this "Tory Boy" let his guard down slightly and spoke with passion and conviction. He genuinely believed that he and most politicians were primarily driven by ideals of public service and were making great sacrifices for the common good of the common man, he didn't use the term altruism but this was the gist of it.

My personal opinion is that while the "MP expenses scandal", is that if you accept and put aside for a moment the issue of the huge wage inequality in the UK, then given that most MPs are in a position to get better paid jobs, then the fraudulent expense claims been overhyped. The old perception was that MP's basic wages are not terribly high but the expenses were good. However I also think we should reflect carefully that politicians tends to massively ambitious and this does not necessarily make them good "public servants".

I see a parallels between our ambitious politicians and bankers. Many investment bankers used high risk strategies has made many of them obscenely wealthy but eventually turned sour, and left us with a financial black hole in the Credit Default Swap (CDS) market aka the "credit crunch". Similarly our politicians need to prove themselves in a short period of time and are keen on radical reform; this does not make good long-term guardians.

Like Sir Robert Chiltern in Oscar Wilde's "The Ideal Husband", being a politician inevitably gives the MPs huge amounts of power, influence and access. So much of life is about experience and good contacts, becoming an MP is a fantastic opportunity and I see very few MPs doing badly (and I'm not sure they would all make it as CEOs).

Part of the problem is the media, we seem fixated with newspapers with sensational headlines. In the late 19th century the upper classes were genuinely suffrage movement, which was fighting to get the vote to the common man (although not the common women). There concerns were that if everyone had the vote that this would "dumb down" the countries government. While I m great believer in democracy and an equal sharing of power, it is depressing to read much of the knee-jerk reporting there is in the tabloids.

However returning our politicans, they would do well not to just enviously look up the ladder at the reward packages of the top CEOs, but to also to look down at the more meagre average wages in UK.

There was a fascinating psychological study (citation required), which found in a slightly counter intuitive way that the most stressed elements of the work-force were not the long-hours executive class, they found that this class felt powerful and in control of their environments and lives. No the most stressed are the low paid, often with little job security and very exposed to the vagaries of the market forces and their managers whims. While I did expect the hardest working to be the most stressed, on reflection I can see that although I do work very, I really enjoy my work find it very interesting and fulfilling.

erudite |ˈer(y)əˌdīt|

adjective

having or showing great knowledge or learning.

DERIVATIVES

eruditely adverb

erudition |ˈer(y)oŏˌdi sh ən| |ˈɛrəˈdɪʃən| |ˈɛr(j)ʊˈdɪʃən| noun

ORIGIN late Middle English : from Latin eruditus, past participle of erudire ‘instruct, train’ (based on rudis ‘rude, untrained’ ).

gist |jist|

noun [in sing. ]

1 the substance or essence of a speech or text : she noted the gist of each message.

2 Law the real point of an action : damage is the gist of the action and without it the plaintiff must fail.

ORIGIN early 18th cent.: from Old French, third person singular present tense of gesir ‘to lie,’ from Latin jacere. The Anglo-French legal phrase cest action gist [this action lies] denoted that there were sufficient grounds to proceed; gist was adopted into English denoting the grounds themselves ( sense 2).

overhype

verb |ˌōvərˈhīp| [ trans. ]

make exaggerated claims about (a product, idea, or event); publicize or promote excessively : it would appear that the organizers overhyped the crowd size.

noun |ˈōvərˌhīp|

excessive publicity or promotion : were the media more rational about it, the unmistakable taste of overhype would not be so strong.

meager |ˈmēgər| ( Brit. meagre)

adjective

(of something provided or available) lacking in quantity or quality : they were forced to supplement their meager earnings.

• (of a person or animal) lean; thin.

ORIGIN Middle English (in the sense [lean] ): from Old French maigre, from Latin macer.

suffrage |ˈsəfrij|

noun

1 the right to vote in political elections.

• archaic a vote given in assent to a proposal or in favor of the election of a particular person.

2 (usu. suffrages) a series of intercessory prayers or petitions.

ORIGIN late Middle English (in the sense [intercessory prayers,] also [assistance] ): from Latin suffragium, reinforced by French suffrage. The modern sense of [right to vote] was originally U.S. (dating from the late 18th cent.).