Virtually every organisation has them, these days. They are variously called mission statements, statements of values or goals.
The banks are very good at them. You see the statements at the counter. Often they have woolly words like customer-focus, best possible service, corporate good-citizenship and so on.
Political parties are even better at them. Party platforms talk in even bolder terms about working for a better Australia, to have values of decency, to strive for honesty and openness, to work for a modern economy while ensuring that those less fortunate have equal opportunity and so on.
This week the three BTI’s (big ticket items) in the news pages were the political demise of Kate Carnell; the potential political demise of Peter Reith; and the National Australia Bank’s simultaneous announcement of fee rises and branch closures, closely followed by a similar announcement from Westpac.
The announcement by NAB has left many customers aggrieved. Many bank customers for a long time have felt the banks are bastards, driving people away, not providing services and so on. They are right. The mission statements about providing the best service for customers is a load of twaddle. To understand the bank’s conduct we have to ask the question that Aristotle asked several thousand years ago, and keep asking it. Why? Why does NAB want to increase the charges on over-the-counter transactions? Because that is what they cost and the costs must be recovered. Why recover the costs? Because if we recover costs from customers who cause us huge costs we will drive those customers away. Why drive those customers away? So we have more profitable customers and fewer costly customers? Why do you want that? So we can make more profits? Why do you want more profits? So we can keep out shareholders happy? Why do you want to keep your shareholders happy? So they don’t sell and drive the share price down and leave us vulnerable to our competitors. Why does that worry you? Because we do not want to be taken over or run out of business? And then there are no further “”why” questions.
That is it. We want to stay in existence.
It is the ultimate answer, whether it is a bank or a political party; whether it is an individual, charity or corporation.
How often do you see a letter from the head of a bureaucratic organisation saying: “”this organisation has done everything that needs to be done and I now recommend that it be wound up”? Never. The Snowy Mountains Authority (under a slightly different name) is building things in the Asian tropics long after the completion of the Snowy scheme. Why? Because it wants to continue to exist.
Survivorship is never stated in the mission statements or the lists of values and goals. It should be at the top of the list. If it were honest, the list “”The National Australia Bank, first and foremost, stands for continuing in existence. All other aims are subservient to that aim.” If the NAB closes branches, it does so to continue in existence, because other banks might close branches, be more efficient and take the NAB over.
Sure, some organisations misread what should be done to continue in existence. They destroy the village to save it, but continuance in existence is a fundamental aim and should be looked to as an explanation of organisational affairs.
Individuals also have a desire to continue in existence, either in their career or in their lives, but the drive is not quite as strong as the same drive within organisations.
Academics, for example, particularly sociologists, will always write at the end of a long and learned paper: “”More research is required to get definitive answers.” Who will do the research? Whose career will continue to exist?
Politicians are the same. Only Menzies, of the Australian Prime Ministers, retired at his own volition. (Barton and Fisher, one way or another, had voluntary retirement forced upon them.)
The desire for political survivorship is a driving force of politicians. But it is not quite as strong as that force within political organisations. And sometimes to two conflict. The survivorship of the political organisation sometimes requires that the individual does not survive. We witnessed that in the ACT last week and we shall most likely witness it in the federal sphere with Peter Reith. The forces are very powerful. They can help explain political events.
The British biologist Richard Dawkins has explained these forces in the biological sphere in his book The Selfish Gene.
Dawkins has taken Darwin’s theory of the survival of the fittest a little further. Darwin said individuals, including humans, strive for life in a hostile environment. Those that succeed are “”fit”. They have attributes which help them survive: camouflage and the ability to go without water for long periods are examples. If they survive they are more likely to pass those attributes on to offspring, who in turn survive. It is the survival of the fittest.
Dawkins, however, queried some of this. He wondered why a mother or father might shelter a baby from attack. Why a mother penguin would give up food to an offspring endangering her own life. Dawkins thought that it was not a question of the survival of the fittest individual. Rather it was selfish genes pursuing survivorship even if it occasionally cost the life of an individual mother. The fittest genes, not the fittest individuals, survived. Those genes which had elements of altruism for offspring (even at the cost of parental lives) were more likely to survive than those genes which only had elements that pursued survival of the individual in which they presently resided.
The behaviour of political parties can be explained the same way. A party that had a great propensity (a gene or a meme, if you like) to promote the survivorship of all the individual members of that party would not last long. The surviving individuals would wrangle or display such distasteful characteristics that the party would fall from power and go out of existence. To survive, it needs mechanisms to expunge individuals that threaten its existence.
The party becomes greater than the parts. The party that is made up totally of individuals with greater survivorship skills will not itself survive. It needs the equivalent of parental altruism or sibling treachery that tosses the weak sibling out of the nest so the resources are not dissipated so threatening all the chicks in the nest.
The dynamic of survivorship is very powerful. In the political sphere it should not be seen as an individual thing. This is why the ACT Liberals (collectively, including Kate Carnell) put their own survivorship ahead of that of the individual. Political parties will not intentionally suicide for an individual.
If the risk of losing government is greater for retaining an individual than by dumping him or her, the person will inevitably go.
Kate Carnell was very political fit survivors, but not as fit as the genes within her party. And I suspect Peter Reith is in the same gene pool.