I love transparency, and I wish I believed it could save the world all by itself. Transparency, of course, is the opposite of opacity, secrets, anonymity… all those affordances that can hide bad behavior, foster bribery and corruption, and encourage loutishness. Transparency is far worse for the bad guys than privacy is good for the good guys. And it is not even-handed: It encourages the good/bad guys in the middle to be good and to get rewarded for it, in a self-reinforcing virtuous cycle.
And yet, we can hope for too much for transparency. Transparency is only a start. Businesses and governments should foster transparency; philanthropies should also make sure their money is used properly. These are important steps.
But in many dysfunctional cultures, it’s hard for people to understand what they are seeing. You need to change not just what people can see, but their ability to see it. People from (mostly) clean societies often assume that knowledge of corruption is enough to stop it, but that ‘s not the case.
For example, last year in Kyrgyzstan I met with a local (honest) businessman, who told me how many children he knew wanted to grow up to be a tax inspector. It was just a job like any other, but with great benefits. Being a politician or a tax inspector is considered a great job — and perhaps would be even more so if everyone knew exactly how much they make.
Or take the Russian I talked to way back in 1991, at the end of the Soviet Union. “Our government is going to set free-market prices, just like yours!” he told me jubilantly. He simply did not get the concept of the market setting prices. The theory is that only government oversight can make sure that the resulting prices are fair. Sure, if I had pressed him, he would have understood that prices can be set by negotiation. But to him, negotiated prices have the stink of coercion. Bribes are determined by a subtle negotiation, but usually one side has the power.
If you can’t understand a free market, then you can’t understand the distortions, moral and economic, of a corrupt, fixed one.
In short, some transparency may reveal problems but it doesn’t necessarily fix them. To fix them you need courage and broad support.
Perhaps the most hopeful sign for transparency is recent events in China. Here, transparency — the plain-sight evidence of corruption in the building of schools — coupled with courage — born of the desperation of people whose children were the center of their lives and hopes — is creating an earthquake of its own. It’s not just that the bereft parents are seeing the corruption; they also see that they are not alone in seeing it. Yes, right now China’s government is cracking down again, but this time memory of the events will live on longer, in the distributed archive called the Internet. And with luck, people’s vision will not fade.
The point here is not that transparency won’t work, but that people who have lived without it have impaired vision. We need to fix that vision even as we shine bright lights on the level playing field.
By Jared at 2:28 PM ON 08/16/08
Transparency v. Translucency...
*The route to expounding the right transparency especially in politics is:
To find out that "Party" politics are interfering with the actual agenda and resolve of much needed issues...
To realize that some "earmarks" are just pork barrel spending in disguise and that some attached Amendments are just illegal weasels making an entrance through the back door...
To keep open our free global market "by reforming" "NAFTA & FTAA so that the process itself stays an open free market beneficially available to employers and employees here in America is the only way to achieve the energy independence we are now embarking upon...
To stop blaming the rich for the poor problems of the world and start thinking of programs that inspire the status of agreements in a sub-contractual base...
To quit paying $450.00 for a hammer in the Department of Defense and other bureaucracies that are tax payer funded...
To understand the skeleton that everyone has in their closet is a reason that any individual is not able to change their minds, opinions, and personal growth on any issue is a thought imbecilic in the nature and art of adapting to overcome inconsistencies thereof, and driven by the media for their own personal gain...
*The right translucency is:
To say that you as a nothing nobody don't matter is the only wrong way to believe "in a self-reinforcing virtuous cycle" and "We need to fix that vision even as we shine bright lights on the level playing field" so "people’s vision will not fade"...
Ousty...
By TheGuyde at 10:03 PM ON 08/22/08
OPACITY THE AUGMENTATION OF TRANSLUCENCY
I was so looking forward to this subject! You both start brilliantly, but disappoint me before the half way.
Sorry Esther, but you lost me at the third paragraph. Maybe it’s me? Luckily, if it wee a brain fart, I wake up for the last three paragraphs, when you shed the hope of a better tomorrow.
Jared, thank you for mentioning translucency. But you were very opaque in that description. Besides, you hit a nerve when you said that the route to transparency included stopping to blame the rich for the poor problems.
While many problems are attributable to one cause, there are countless problems that are compounded by a multiplicity of causes. Poverty for one has many root causes; It is virtually impossible to enumerate these causes without exposing the skeletons in and out of the poor and the rich alike, or entirely independent of either.
One of the flawed excuses for translucency (if not opacity) is that the weak need to be protected. For instance, it is true that many poor people will refuse to ask for financial help if they must publicly record their incidence of weakness. The brilliant response to that was the institution of programs like Social Security and Welfare. Think of it like insurance. By taxing a small percentage of our income, earmarked for welfare, the government restores our pride in the event that we need financial help due to a temporary or permanent inability to be self sufficient. By making the event transparent, we increase the possibility that anyone who is aware of deception from the part of the applicant would be able to come forward and denounce the deception.
Conversely, the poor are not the only crooks. Rich people use translucency not only to shield their fortune form being sought after, but also to shield marginal if not unlawful methods of acquisition. Now I know many Churches who stopped or never revealed the disbursement of funds. Make no mistake. While I am not saying that they are misusing funds, there is no doubt in my mind that their practice in that method encourages drain of funds from the poor. That goes for lack of record keeping from the donor transaction as well as from the ultimate recipient transaction.
I know many people who live in the red and have been brain washed in thinking that the rich are not responsible at various degrees for the fate of the poor. Again, don’t let me misunderstood; a poor individual may cause his own misfortune, willingly or not. Even if he does not, his misfortune may be independent from any other individual or organization; unless we agree that wealth should not be measured in net monetary value. But anyone who can think for himself knows that if money cannot buy happiness, it goes a long way towards it.
I affirm, against some dumb-witted senators, that we can not only measure a minimum monetary amount required for a person’s survival, but also compromise on a threshold for average wealth and a separate one for the filthy rich (I did not invent the expression). If you have even an elementary understanding of percentage, you realize that a flat proportional tax is not fair. For those of you who disagree, I will elaborate, in writing:
Let us assume that John Doe makes just enough money to survive, humor me let us say that is $10 thousand a year. Let us assume that Richard the Third makes $1 million a year. Apply a 10% tax to both. Is that fair? I think not. Richard with all his wealth also owns more land and property requiring more police force to keep from the poor. Therefore he should pay more taxes for the required attention. Assuming that he is a scrooge and lives in the same $1,000 property style as John, then, he still requires more police protection because his money alone is a magnet for thieves!
By Jared at 1:06 PM ON 08/23/08
To GUYDE,
Excellent deduction as to clarification of the issues, and thank you for your insight of explanation! I wish more people would speak from experience instead of inanimate advice such as befuddled's over at "The Next Technological Revolution Will Happen in Space".
In respects of your observation that I claimed transparency and was opaque (ironic in it's finest) to clarify my ideology on the quit blaming the rich for the poor problems of the world statement, as not at all trying to abridge the necessity for welfare and security programs for emergency uses, in just one of the homeless shelters I've stayed at, I met a man who could play the piano like Bach. Instead of using his talent to pull himself out of that situation, he thought keeping his hand out asking the rich to provide for him was legitimate and empathetic for the reason of his condition. I even went out of my way to locate places for him to utilize his talent. He refused and instead felt it necessary to continue to blame the rich for his problems all while his one hand out extended to two.
This is only one example of 1 of 100 homeless shelters I've visited and watched over and over people with real talent just sit around blaming the rich for their problems. I actually did a field study on this all across the country, and to further the explanation, here is an excerpt from my novel "The 50 Rules of Law" by Jared Masters © 2008 Case # 1-88681257:
CHAPTER 2
The destiny of ones own imagination truly begins with the "senz" volunteer state of recognition. Even by proxy, Ben Franklin proved this among many other Founders, and furthermore let's talk a little walk back to the proletarian. A member of the poorest class of a society has the word detriment written all over their well being. However, since a word changes its meaning with one letter, prefix, or ending, then any charitable thing to do will be to take the word proletarian apart and extend its' meaning such as pro-let-a-ri-an. So now what does the poorest class of society really stand for? That's a question you have to ask yourself, however, "pro-let" equal your expertise in assisting them in endeavors that that individual would really benefit and want to do to lift themselves out out of their own impressionism of a stubborn egotist is the only thing that will work for them. In extension, "a-ri-an" better termed as "a-re-an" is a follow up project that will keep them moving in the right direction even if it takes a while to shed them of their instilled tautology. Needless repetition is like "busywork", and that translates as pointless irresponsible work that gets nowhere fast at a usual constant pace. There's alot of room for error, and the best thing is that when you see growth in an individual, it's like looking at the glass half empty as a bank savings account, and the glass half full as a bank checking account. Both are equally playing a balance act except previous pessimistic cynicisms become more humor than reality and growth of new balance...
[ end excerpt ]
*I say this because there were 100's of individuals I assisted in pulling themselves out of their situation even in side by side day labor employment, and just 1 of those successes was worth the 10 that left me feeling like I let them down.
...as for the rich "are responsible" at various degrees for the fate of the poor, they do feed on the fact that as employees, the rich exploit the illiteracy of the poor to keep making money for only the rich.
Again thanks TheGuyde, you are truly a scholar in the art of "THE AUGMENTATION OF TRANSLUCENCY".
Jared
By Dianna Santos at 11:30 PM ON 11/12/08
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By Tyron Walls at 5:03 AM ON 11/13/08
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