Today’s the election day for the new Tokyo governor. I recall a TV program that reveals how politicians in Japan practically make no money. Technically, the amount of money they receive is quite significant, but if I didn’t remember it wrong, the amount that goes into paying for the people required for them to form the team and for election takes up pretty much most of their salary. So, the people who remain in politics are the ones who do it for the country.
Since the first time our nation claimed that high salary for ministers prevent corruption, I’ve always thought otherwise. And it has come to reveal this to be so. For a man as brilliant as the respected Lee, it is surprising that he didn’t see that using money to attract people will effectively attract people who love money. Same reason why you don’t use nectar to attract lions nor carcasses to attract butterflies. Be it the elephant in the circus or your puppy at home, they all perform tricks not because they like it, but because they get delicious treats if they do it. And if someone else would give them treats, they’d do the same tricks for them.
If as the government has mentioned, that MPs sacrifice a lot (including their private lives and families) to be an MP, it is not difficult to understand that if they can sacrifice all these for money, they can pretty much do many things else for it. And this “many things else” can sometimes amount to corruption. Perhaps, if the salary isn’t so attractive, the people who go for the job would more likely do it for the country than the money. The fundamental flaw in the current argument using “low salaries would lead to corruption” as a premise is that it presupposes a “not high salary” equates to a “low salary.” This does not essentially have to be true.
