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Comment by Shacklz | Hacker News Reader

I never quite understood how this is not obvious to everyone.

The primary driver and motivation for politicians should be altruism, do good for the sake of it. So many people in NGOs etc. are capable of doing just that; working for "the good" even though it pays bad, why should we not expect that from politicians?

The US (I'm Swiss) is in my opinion a primary example on why you want to keep the kind of people that care about their own personal finances as far away from politics as possible. Let them play real estate sharks or monopoly at wall street or whatever floats their boat; just don't let them anywhere close to positions where decisions are made that impact not just their life but everyone else's too.

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> The primary driver and motivation for politicians should be altruism, do good for the sake of it.

Any system that relies on people being good is a bad system. A good system is one that has good outcomes with weak and venal human beings. The US federal system has its merits but it’s far inferior to Switzerland’s.

> So many people in NGOs etc. are capable of doing just that; working for "the good" even though it pays bad, why should we not expect that from politicians?

Because the government is important. Ideally we want not the best of the people who are motivated by their conception of the good, we want the best, full stop. The average NGO is much less well run than the average company. At the extreme top level where you’re comparing the Gates Foundation with General Electric you’re dealing with at least roughly equivalent levels of competence but if you want the best and you can afford it you shouldn’t self handicap by only hiring those who don’t value money much.

Plenty of NGOs (charities and other humanitarian organizations) are also outright scams: https://smartasset.com/mortgage/the-50-worst-charities-in-am...

Altruism is complicated.

Politics doesn't select for altruism. Politics requires lying, bribing and stealing so it's no wonder the very scum of the earth ends up in positions of power (same for most NGOs executives BTW). Power corrupts, so you will never be able to get altruistic individuals in power. You can't square that circle. The only solution is to severely limit their power.

Why do you think a position as an NGO executive selects for that? Executives in general, yes. NGOs too?

Because altruism alone doesn't get you special interest campaign financing and you gotta win first before you can do anything.

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