Hap jou maatjie

[davefreer]

Raising a society - it would seem to me - is not unlike raising children. Society tends, if left to itself to be immature, often unpleasant, inclined to do things because somebody thought it would be fun - which it usually isn't for the victims. As you might have guessed I am not one of those who holds to the concept of innocent savage or noble

Comments

[masgramondou]

If you'd like to shoot down a few executive jets I've got the perfect spot on the Riviera... Of course we need to figure out who's in what jet etc. etc. but there's the film festival and the monaco GP coming up so lots of underserving rich will be here.

[aston_splat]

Why do we need to know? We just need to know who the ones we do not want to hit are in and pot-luck on the rest. ;)

[davefreer]

I was actually thinking more on the lines of 'you're fired' than firing at them. It would, for intance, be fairly easy to blacklist banks for any future bailouts (while gauranteeing a limited investment) for any banks that failed to pass on rate cuts. Just being blacklisted would be the equivalent of death sentence, no matter how good your figures looked right then. Still, shooting them down has its possibilities... might enrich the world by shooting down a few hollywood movie stars.

[masgramondou]

Well. Yes. But no.

I was being a bit sarcastic but the more I think about it the better the idea seems.

You see the problem is these scum generally seem to weasel their way out of major repercussions for their actions. I mean yes the bank might lose its credit rating but the Bank CEO will be sitting pretty on his guaranteed pension pot come what may. And if for some reason one pension pot dries up then one of his buddies appoints him to the board of some other company or 10 and he collects some money that way.

About the only thing they can't get around is death. Hence if you shoot a few of the more egregious ones it may (as the Bananaslug says below) encourage the rest. Maybe it wouldn't work for businessmen but I bet it would work for the politicians who shelter them and provide them with opportunities for rent-seeking.

screwing your buddies

[bigbananaslug]

On a societal level, ostracism works. It has worked well in lots of high profile and lower profile issues, from apartheid (regardless of the outcome, Dave, it worked) to green technology, to saving the whales...But it takes a long time. You have to have generational change, and the education system and the news media have to be in on the gag, and willing to do it.

There are some very successful investment vehicles for "socially responsible companies" and the big Euro companies are being forced to become much more socially responsible as the economic calculus becomes widened to include social responsibility as a cost/benefit.

Although, if they made me King of the World I wouldn't do ostracism. Some decimation "pour encourager les oultres" might be in order. I've noticed terrific quality control improvements in China since they shot a few business executives for putting melamine in milk and other badnesses.

Walt

Re: screwing your buddies

[davefreer]

There is no doubt ostracism did work - but it worked because of the people it was targeted at. The West could try it on Bob Mugabe and his hench-thugs until the next millenium without any effect

Re: screwing your buddies

[bigbananaslug]

You're right about Mugabe, and the US-led boycott of Cuba didn't work well either-- after all both are still in power.

I'm all for campaigning for that level of social responsibility, and I'm not unhappy with Obama when he did just that with the CEOs of Merrill-Lynch and General Motors.

And I agree with you about inherited wealth...although Andrea is upset that I've left my book collection to Bananaslug U. (Univ. of Calif. at Santa Cruz where the Heinlein Papers are...my library is going to be an addition to RAH's)

Re: screwing your buddies

[luke_jaywalker]

I'm very hesitant with the term 'exploiting the misfortunes.' A doctor, or a pharmaceutical company, is arguably making their money off that kind of misfortune: people wouldn't see a doctor, or buy medicine, if it wasn't for some misfortune. I know that's not what you meant, but it's why I'm not fond of that particular verb.

Companies that make their dime by *causing* misfortune, on the other hand, I have absolutely no sympathy for. False advertising. Charging unanticipated extra fees of the "because we can" variety once a customer is locked in. Short-sighted, zero-sum behavior - making a nickel this quarter at the cost of a dollar over the long run.

Incidentally, how would you define 'corporate wealth'? A large corporation *is* going to have a lot of assets, yes; tools for getting things done. Office space, corporate vehicles, furniture, racks of tools and servers.

[qbzzt]

Parents and NCOs understand the situation of their children and boots well enough to identify "Hap jou maatjies" behavior fairly reliably.

The overall economy isn't simple enough for this. Even if today you slap down an honestly corrupt "Hap jou maatjies" business, tomorrow somebody with a grudge against you will claim you're "Hap jou maatjies". And most of us won't have time to investigate - we'll just believe either them or you.

[luke_jaywalker]

This is an issue. On the other hand, some behavior is objectively unethical: false advertising comes to mind, and I *really* wish the government would crack down harder on that.

My problem with the credit cardholders bill of rights thing in Congress right now isn't so much government intervention in the field, but that companies in the industry have behaved so badly as to make that kind of regulation *necessary.* Now it's going to be encumbering good companies (who may have from time to time done things that cross one of the bill's lines, weighted by some big benefit in another direction) as well as bad ones.

[qbzzt]

Some behaviors, such as false advertising, are illegal. The crime can be defined in concrete legal terms, and whether somebody committed it or not decided in a court of law.

My problem is that "hap jou maatjies" isn't well defined. It's a spectrum, which means a slippery slope. That scares me.

[davefreer]

life's a slippery slope. When the information is made public we're actually quite good at discrimination and there have been some very good elegant tests showing 1)primates have a very good idea what fair is. We're social animals, living and working in a social context, we're evolved to do this. 2)People (as part of the primate spectrum, some closer to monkeys than others) are good at it too, and also will give up some of their own benefits to punish those who 'hap their maatjies'. I can dig the refs up if you really need them. Part of what you're not getting I feel is those who are screwing their mates are are aware of it. And - just as the NCO never punished those who were - the best people to spot it and police it are the troops themselves -- once they they see it is to their benefit, and that they can. I am sure for example, that the US has as many professional societies as we do - everything from builders to lawyers or doctors. Part of the mandate of damn near every one of these organisations I've ever come across is to safeguard

[unixronin]

I believe society needs to get onto a bit of negative reinforcement of what is acceptable and what isn't.
I'm with you there. It's time to pull down some robber barons.