SECTION FOUR, PART ONE

YOU WONDER, WHY? Been away, attending weddings and funerals. Plenty of scope to think about what the social contract means, but more importantly, how it is enforced. You see, the concept of justice and honesty applying equally to the whole population, which is why they will tolerate living next door to each other, without resorting to violence, or other forms of bullying to get their way. Everyone is supposed to have equal access to the rules, the adjudicators, the support systems, and this is why they will tolerate meritorious advancement by some individuals. Advanced social structures have a whole series of institutional interlocutors who, acting in the best interests of the whole community, will ensure that fairness, and honesty, tend to be the majority guiding principles, even if they can not be demonstrated as being in existence all of the time. Punishment, in various forms, exists for those who wish to deviate from social obligations to the particular advantage of themselves. Of course, the fundamental philosophical difficulty with this is the assumption that all recognise, and accept the guiding principles. You see, the contract only works if all people recognise that they need to comply with the contract. We have some serial abusers of the need to meet their side of the contract, and the pity is, they probably think that abusing the contract is a sign of their meritorious advancement. They don't think the same...do not feel the need to accept the same conventions...yet expect the support of the military/police structures to intervene against possible violence against themselves. They expect the general population to underpin the support superstructures, but don't wish to meet their obligations to that society. Case in point. Leightons is a stock exchange listed construction company in Australia. It has recently hit the news for what appears to be a reasonably systematic pattern of bribery over the last few years to win, pr maintain contracts....the stated bribery being for projects in jurisdictions other than Australia, but that is beside the point. From a social point of view, proxy advisers have been particularly aggressive in relation to the liberties this company takes in the rewarding of remuneration of its executives...way too generous with other peoples money. Some egregious payments would now seem to have been made to people firmly implicated in the offer of, or knowledge of, the bribery. Now lets break this down....this is a company which expects fairness to apply in the rewarding of Australian construction contracts, tries to sidestep fairness in other jurisdictions, pays high rewards to its executives for being dishonest, on the basis that this is their contractural "due", and says to hell with the general shareholders, and population which pays for its existence. Mindset? They don't quite think like you and me, do they? This is the Who Dares Wins behaviour of the banks over he last few years. There is no thought that these types of people will be able to be re-conciled to normal society values....we should not fool ourselves that these people have any conscience about anything...it is a get away with it if you can behaviour. These people are not self-redemptive. If we assume bribery is an unacceptable social behaviour, and the proponents are not self-redemptive, then the institutionalized punishment structures need to be invoked. There is no falling between the cracks here. But, No. Neither ASIC nor the Australian Federal Police have done anything. Even the ASX has not done anything....Shouldn't listed companies advise the exchanges if some of their revenues arise from bribery laced contracts, so that all the population of shareholders can form a view about the quality of the corporate culture. Doesn't people who advance themselves through bribery, and not be punished, just create an environment where the rest of the population will think that bribery is the preferred way to get ahead. See! The social contract has been subverted, and dishonesty becomes the guiding force in social relations. Do these people, like Wall Street, have some form of racial profile which creates a problem with particularism. Dishonesty rules, because there is no ethical or moral frame apart from the false advancement measured by the collection of money. Bribery is a form of bullying through the use of money. It is an attempt to gain an advantage against those who are morally framed not to bribe, or do not have the resources to match the bribe. Either way, they are not part of MY society, and they will not meet the needs of the social contract. It is either by force of money, or force of guns, that you get these people to comply with being human beings, in a just and fair society. Time for the interlocutors to step up, and punish them....and quickly!!!