Excerpt
Ken wanted to know how one could have a political system that worked
when society, even on the smallest scale, was dysfunctional. He pointed
out that even in their own household they had servants, all of them women,
most of them young and illiterate, who were paid a pittance. In most
households the servants were treated like animals. In a country where this
was going on, how could there ever be a fair political system?
“Just between you and I, that is my interest,” Ken Sr. Said. “But, you
can’t go into the street with guns and mobs behind you – it just doesn’t
work. What we need to do is bring the wages of the people up so they will
have something to lose. People who have nothing to lose are the most
dangerous people on earth.”
He explained that it was because of this reasoning that he paid his staff
double the normal salary. “That,” he said, “Is actually a very political act
because the handful of families who wield power want to keep the populace
down so they can control them. Doing what I am doing is an overt
political act. “
His father said that he was walking a thin line but if he could get away
with what he was doing, he would win. Others would have to follow his
lead – they would have to match the salaries he was paying or all the best
brains in the country would go to work for him. Once he had the best
brains, he would be in a position to start other companies and continue
to expand his business interests to the detriment of others. But as his
companies grew and he employed more and more people fairly, his ideas
would also spread.
“But that’s a very slow way of doing things,” Ken said. “I want to change
things quickly.”
“There are no quick fixes,” his father said. “Anybody who tells you there
are is just selling you snake oil.”
Ken had complained to his father several times about the servants. He
explained that he couldn’t bear being served – that he felt uncomfortable
with it. “Why can’t we get up and serve ourselves?” he asked. “What’s
wrong with us making our own beds? What’s wrong with us cleaning the
house?”
“That’s the culture we’re in,” his father said. “We’re not in charge here.
This is not our country. We’re here as guests and there’s a limit to how
much we can disrupt this society.”
“It sounds a bit like an excuse.”
“Partially, it is. But anyone who wants to move things along too quickly
is going to destroy the very thing they’re trying to do.”
He added that he paid their servants the same way he paid his office
and factory workers – twice what anyone else paid. He admonished his
son once again to be careful with his conversation in earshot of the servants.
The Kirkbys were a prominent, well-known and powerful family,
Manolis Aligizakis 