There is limited or no market reward at present for keeping families together, upgrading infrastructure, lifelong education, preventative care, or improving democracy.
Just as it has done for at least the past fifty years, politics exists to improve the lives of politicians. The rest of us, not so much; This quote encapsulates this point which is actually the central theme in Yang's book. One of the best examples that he uses is that of preventative care.
Preventative care does exactly what it says on the can; it prevents us from getting sick. It helps us make lifestyle choices, finds out why diseases happen, vaccinates us against them and generally keeps our healthcare costs to a minimum because we are preventing anything that we might need to be medicated for. Sounds great - except as Yang points out, it is only great for "normal people". It is not great for drug companies. After all, they only need to vaccinate us once, or once a decade, or if they are really lucky, once a year. Preventing disease means that they cannot sell us drugs that they promise will make us better. They cannot bill insurance companies billions of dollars for these drugs, and because of this, drug companies don't like the sound of preventative care very much.
Drug companies often pay alot of money to different members of congress, for campaigns, so that they will receive a quid pro quo kind of benefit in return. But because preventative care would mean that fewer of us needed expensive drugs in order to get well again, there is not so much need for them to try to curry favor with politicians; donations are not as forthcoming, so there is no incentive for a politician to table a bill the focuses on preventing a disease rather than treating it. The preventative health example is mirrored in every area of our day to day lives, which means that life in general is structured to benefit those in government, rather than the majority of people who are not in Congress or a part of government at any level.
Intelligence and character aren't the same thing at all. Pretending that they are will lead us to ruin.
Obviously, to run a country one needs to have a certain degree of intelligence. There are challenges that require a great deal of expertise, relationships to make, strategies to implement. A certain level of intelligence is necessary if one is to adequately grasp the elements involved in any kind of role within the government. However, it is just as important to have character.
Character is the kind of quality that enables an intelligent person to succeed without necessarily having completed a college degree. Street smarts are also important when it comes to holding a position of government. Often intelligence is a wonderful smokescreen for a personality flaw, because it is smart enough to come across as sincere, genuine, caring, when in reality it is anything but.
Character, on the other hand, is something that is inherent in a person. A person does not need a formal education or even a particularly high IQ to have character, which deals more with doing the right thing because it is the right thing to do, rather than because there is a decent pay off for it. As voters, we tend to look at a person's intelligence when we are choosing a candidate, but this often a misplaced priority. Intelligence does not guarantee decency, or an honest desire to better the lives of the people. Character does.
