In coming issues we will publish a few chapters of this bilingual book, newly launched at the Confederação Empresarial de Portugal, presented by its President Antonio Saraiva, with foreword by the President of the Auditing Court of Portugal, Guilherme d’Oliveira Martins.
It was edited by Jack Soifer, with co-authors Francisco B. Weinholtz, John Wolf, Stefan de Vylder, Armindo Palma, Luis Silva, Henrique Neto and Viriato Soromenho-Marques.
History - 2
In “History 1” (click here to read) we wrote about the political parties using money from the lobby to finance their election campaigns and thus representing it, not the electors.
In the Old Testament, and in some ancient Greek practices, the householder would not decide anything or vote without hearing the opinions of his wife, adult offspring, slaves, and should also consider the best for his crops , soil and water resources. For none of this really belonged to him, but was under his management. Like everything else in life, his decisions could harm one side or the other, but he had to listen to everyone and ponder - the ability to decide without dogmas made for natural leaders. People thought, reflected, weighed things up and were involved in the welfare of others because only harmonious growth for all allowed the best performance from everyone and thus higher productivity from the majority.
What do we have today? The maximum use of the media, social networks, mobile phones and much clutter which occupies the mind of the citizen and focuses it on the interests of the powerful. This makes people work as slaves without thinking, and they then spend any spare cash, after eating and living expenses, on buying superfluous major brands which sometimes can be harmful - witness the growth in obesity.
This type of democracy ends up with lobbying by those big banks which lend to governments to build pharaonic works at absurd costs while opinion leaders stand by and watch. Local banks also profit, financing these projects, with global funds financing local banks and mega construction companies. This would not happen if the citizen decided.
Governments pay billions for scientists in economics, geology, agriculture, meteorology, sociology, etc, to predict the future (with a good safety margin so that it may be aware of problems), but still does nothing to prevent them. Cycles repeat themselves, errors are repeated and preventable tragedies affect the citizen who always loses.
Nowadays everything is done for a few to govern. They want less opposition, less of constructive dialogues, which is the best for the majority. The economic power, mainly through the media, instills values like sex and money in all classes of society. Also some judges may decide according to the expectations of those who can influence their future career. There is promiscuity between financing, politics and the practice of justice.
