This is the question we usually ask to people around us with great rhetorical skills and solution oriented-approach. And the answer is usually this: “Why would I ever want to get involved in politics?”
Half of those who give that answer to the question actually want people keep complimenting him that how insanely successful s/he would be if s/he entered politics; and the other half make that statement in pure honesty. Apart from the first group, people in second group have a number of valid reasons for refusing to get involved in politics. Here’s why:
When we look back on recent Turkish history, we see a total chaos involving diplomatic conflicts, sharp exchange rate movements, high interest rates and high inflation, besides “elections and referendum” obviously. Apparently, we have not achieved any success worth remembering neither in sports, arts nor science.
Not only Turkey but also the whole World seem like it constantly romances with the election or early election trend. Here’s what I understand from all of this: After having tried various types of regimes on the path to the future, humanity is dealing with the pain of labour in order to find the right, the most appropriate regime. “Let’s govern the country just like the way we manage our firm!” This could lead us to wrong paths, because organizational structures and control mechanism we developed to manage corporations are unsuitable to manage the political life. Also, if we attempt to manage companies with methods we use in politics, we would go bankrupt before long; because:
First of all, voters like to see actions, gests or practices that make them feel happy. Life is hard enough as it is and people no longer want to deal with the reality.
However, the business world goes to bed with reality at night, and wakes up with reality in the morning. And it is the reality itself that makes business people money. That’s why they choose to manage organizations equipped with highly educated labour force. For the reasons I mentioned above, political institutions do not need that kind of deepening anymore. Therefore, politicians prefer to gather all functions in one place rather than getting involved with control-monitoring-decision-performance networks.
Interestingly, political institutions are trying to prevent both individuals and organizations from making personal or business-related decisions without consulting with others, pushing them to adopt a broad-based leadership; but on the other hand, they promote a trend that encourages the centralization of powers through ministries, public institutions, regulatory authorities and municipalities. We can hardly expect highly educated people to enter politics or become a politician under the circumstances since they can guess that they may remain unproductive in places where powers are hierarchically centralized.
“Paradox between Education and Politics…”
There are companies, universities, tech firms, and financial institutions where educated people are happily working because in such workplaces, management usually adopt a top-down approach or a bottom-up approach to decision-making. Similarly, information flow can be provided in both directions. And the result of the flow is value-added. If the flow does not yield anything, then executives as well as other staff become obliged to face new regulations and inspections. Human or machine errors are compensated without getting out of control. As for the consumers, they do not hesitate to react to errors. And those who fail ultimately leave their positions.
Politics, in the other hand, does not work that way. The winners have to face greater challenges compared to losers. Because losers never think they lose. As I mentioned earlier, “feel good” actions and practices, rather than reality, is the trick to be a successful politician. Day by day, winners lose their desire to create value-added unless they are challenged by new and powerful opponents. This is the reason why I always say, “The bad expels the good”. I can even say that, Professional Organization and Syndicates as well, have been and are still being dominated by these negative predispositions.
When people ask me “Why don’t you get into politics?” I always want to tell them things I mentioned above. However, I do nothing more than slightly smiling at them as I think my answer would be too long and maybe too useless.
