Re:Work on these things
by muzani on Thursday January 09, 2020 @10:36AM
(#22002003)
Buddha is textbook - rich fellow who realizes that it hasn't made life better.
Islam went through many cycles of this. Corrupt powerful pagan Quraish. Spiritual Muhammad and Rashidun caliphate. Corrupt Umayyad Caliphate. Spiritual Abbasid Caliphate. The Ottomans went through this as well. We're historically at a low point with regards to Islamic society.
Third world faces this - many of them have abundant natural resources, compared to say, Europe. But the wealth brings corruption, not prosperity.
I think the Rashidun Caliphate has a lot of good examples - caliphs turning down state gifts, distributing most of the wealth, selling off luxuries like silk, jewelry, and carpets for infrastructure, making sure that their families didn't profit from state funds.
Anything where an individual can benefit unfairly from the effort of an organisation is a form of corruption, as it involves abuse of power entrusted. This includes CEOs overpaying themselves, or government leaders with excessively high compensation. They're making use of their position to skim resources for personal benefit, and sadly, it's a culture now that this is what people should aspire to.
Things usually improve when people can draw a line where they have enough, and allocate excess resources to the rest of the organization. This is usually (not necessarily) triggered by spirituality because there's nobody else to keep the watchmen in check.
Once leaders do this, those down the command chain also do the same. There were plenty of situations where commoners were well off - in Egypt, Rome, China, Caliphates, and so on. I believe we actually have lower social mobility today than in some eras of the past, but it's far from terrible.
I could well be wrong, and encourage those with more understanding of history to correct and give counter examples.
Islam went through many cycles of this. Corrupt powerful pagan Quraish. Spiritual Muhammad and Rashidun caliphate. Corrupt Umayyad Caliphate. Spiritual Abbasid Caliphate. The Ottomans went through this as well. We're historically at a low point with regards to Islamic society.
Third world faces this - many of them have abundant natural resources, compared to say, Europe. But the wealth brings corruption, not prosperity.
I think the Rashidun Caliphate has a lot of good examples - caliphs turning down state gifts, distributing most of the wealth, selling off luxuries like silk, jewelry, and carpets for infrastructure, making sure that their families didn't profit from state funds.
Anything where an individual can benefit unfairly from the effort of an organisation is a form of corruption, as it involves abuse of power entrusted. This includes CEOs overpaying themselves, or government leaders with excessively high compensation. They're making use of their position to skim resources for personal benefit, and sadly, it's a culture now that this is what people should aspire to.
Things usually improve when people can draw a line where they have enough, and allocate excess resources to the rest of the organization. This is usually (not necessarily) triggered by spirituality because there's nobody else to keep the watchmen in check.
Once leaders do this, those down the command chain also do the same. There were plenty of situations where commoners were well off - in Egypt, Rome, China, Caliphates, and so on. I believe we actually have lower social mobility today than in some eras of the past, but it's far from terrible.
I could well be wrong, and encourage those with more understanding of history to correct and give counter examples.