Professions of Politicians

The Economist came up with an unusual observation about the stereotyped professions of politicians in different countries.

From the Economist, ``WHEN Barack Obama met Hu Jintao, his Chinese counterpart, it was an encounter not just between two presidents, but also between two professions. A lawyer, trained to argue from first principles and haggle over words, was speaking to an engineer, who knew how to build physical structures and keep them intact. To find out why some professions are prevalent among politicians The Economist trawled through a sample of almost 5,000 politicians in “International Who’s Who”, a reference book, to examine their backgrounds. Some findings are predictable. Africa is full of military men, while lawyers dominate in democracies such as Germany, France and, of course, America. China has a fondness for engineers. But other countries have their own peculiarities. Egypt likes academics; South Korea, civil servants; Brazil, doctors."

Military leaders in Africa reflects on the despotic state of national governance, while "law" in democracies are representative of the prominence of argumentation and debate characteristics which are almost always designed to win the appeal of voters.

Here in the Philippines, many past and present politicos have "law" as background. 8 of the 14 Philippine Presidents were law graduates, namely Ferdinand Marcos, Diosdado Macapagal, Carlos Garcia, Elpidio Quirino, Manuel Roxas, Sergio Osmenia, Jose Laurel, Manuel Quezon. Even Corazon Aquino had an unfinished post graduate studies in law.

Interestingly, since President Marcos, the succeeding presidents have had diverse credentials: Asia's first female President Corazon Aquino had been known as "plain housewife", President Fidel V. Ramos had been a top ranking military officer, President Joseph Estrada a prestigous film actor and the incumbent President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo had been an academic economist and a civil servant.

Nonetheless going back to the commentary by the Economist, we can't explain the quirks of China (fondness for engineers), South Korea (civil servants), Egypt (academics) or Brazil (doctors).

But all these reminds me of two signficant commentaries from Frank Chodorov (1887–1966) in Economics versus Politics, The Rise and Fall of the Society where he says (bold highlight mine)...

``The intrusion of politics into the field of economics is simply an evidence of human ignorance or arrogance, and is as fatuous as an attempt to control the rise and fall of tides. Since the beginning of political institutions, there have been attempts to fix wages, control prices, and create capital, all resulting in failure. Such undertakings must fail because the only competence of politics is in compelling men to do what they do not want to do or to refrain from doing what they are inclined to do, and the laws of economics do not come within that scope. They are impervious to coercion. Wages and prices and capital accumulations have laws of their own, laws which are beyond the purview of the policeman."

and secondly...

``The assumption that economics is subservient to politics stems from a logical fallacy. Since the state (the machinery of politics) can and does control human behavior, and since men are always engaged in the making of a living, in which the laws of economics operate, it seems to follow that in controlling men the state can also bend these laws to its will. The reasoning is erroneous because it overlooks consequences. It is an invariable principle that men labor in order to satisfy their desires, or that the motive power of production is the prospect of consumption; in fact, a thing is not produced until it reaches the consumer."

The underlying moral: regardless of the politician's experience or background, the law of economics must dominate society's needs.