Last night I was patrolling in uniform. There are a few stores in the neighborhood that are shoplifted from a lot, so we stood in front of one for a while on Sixth Avenue.
We weren’t walking a beat but we were creating a presence of law and order. We were accessible to all who passed. Nobody approached us with problems. We didn’t see any crimes. We were available and accessible. The most common interaction was people asking us direction. We were a deterrent too.
The thoughts I’m sharing in today’s post is to contrast what we did with business school. In practice, we just stood there. In no class in earning my MBA did we learn to value just standing as productive. Thus, part of my mind kept trying to think of how to be more efficient or productive, but that approach wouldn’t have improved our results.
In the effective altruism community, they think of how to help others best. One strategy is to make as much money as possible, then give it away based on how many lives you can save. I think they might see someone with multiple ivy degrees, including an MBA and a PhD in physics, not a subject easily dismissed, and see that strategy as effective. I think they’d see standing around as a waste of potential.
I think they’d allow that someone has to do such work, but I bet they’d think: not someone capable of more. That is, they’d see it as beneath them.
I’m only using effective altruists as an example, not to pick on them. I think our culture doesn’t recognize some values that don’t make money. During the pandemic they called people “essential workers,” implying they were important, but they were doing work that, since anyone could do it, they had low bargaining power and thus kept accepting low pay, now for work that risked their lives.
I’m not trying to reach any conclusion here. I’m just sharing some thoughts.
Law and America
Coincidentally, I was listening to my recent podcast conversation with Robert Parkinson, which I recommend, where he quoted Thomas Paine in Common Sense that the law is king in this country.
the world may know, that so far as we approve of monarchy, that in America the law is king. For as in absolute governments the King is law, so in free countries the law ought to be King; and there ought to be no other.
If we want the law to be king and not a human tyrant, we have to protect the law. I suspect more people with MBAs commit white collar crimes than patrol streets.
