The Rules of the Empty Game

[azooey]

Since I've been allowing myself to indulge in politics these days, quite by serendipity, I stumbled upon this wonderfully lucid piece of gyan. Why does India have such terrible politicians?

Like academics and pickpockets, politicians too have rules which they can break only at great risk.

The Rules of the Empty Game

Rule No 1 is that only winning

Comments

[cyntalist]

Some thoughts...

I'm not sure rule #4 is accurate. Given that most governments of late don't last the 5 year term. I would try and achieve the targets earlier and keep the last year or two for bonuses.

Rule #3 would be valid only until you win, right? After that, the state and hence the tax paying population and the favour seekers pay.

Isn't Rule #2 a subset of Rule #5? Your worth is proportional to the money you bring and that little extra that ensures money keeps coming in the future.

Rules 1, 6 and 7 are dead on.

[azooey]

The NDA lasted 5 yrs. The UPA is sitting pretty too, albeit on leftist fences. We're obviously trying to ignore state assemblies here, Goa in particular :)

And making the state/taxpayers/favour-seekers pay, is just another way of securing our politician's daily wages, no?

... my personal favourite is No. 6!

[cyntalist]

#6 would be my favourite as well. That, I figure, would be true of any fraternity/sorority - lawyers, doctors, programmers, teachers, ...

Not actually...

[cyntalist]

The NDA govt. lasted only 4 years and some odd months - because somebody thought that dissolving the govt. early would get them a huge majority...

One op-ed that explans so much of Indian politics

[anonymous]

Once you keep these rules in mind, amazing how much of the public discourse about politics seems pointless -- whether it's wishful thinking about "statesment of integrity" or cynical apathy to the effect that all "politicians are crooks" and there's no point...

Prashant

Re: One op-ed that explains so much of Indian politics

[azooey]

Yep, its true. Its hard to look beyond, once the rules are set. But there's much that can be achieved within the framework of such ostensibly unfair trade rules. And heck, all rules are meant to be broken - therein lies the thrill ;)

fired-maan faan saa ... butt

[prenju]

pls mention his tuppence on "spending your own money vs. somebody else's money" :-( me is not knowing ...