On this note, there are two arguments to be made – the obvious one, and the less so.
The obvious argument is that a population’s faith in their government is dependent on the latter’s competence. If a government fails to provide the basics, backlash is inevitable. Talk about the alternatives to that same government will also become inevitable, including extreme options which were otherwise considered beyond the pale.
Which brings us to the less obvious argument. Severe, long-term incompetence breeds so much dissidence that it puts democracy at risk. You see, society can generally withstand the failures of an individual. One useless director on a company board does not spell the end of that company. Malfeasance can be punished, unreliable individuals can be rooted out, and the show can go on uninterrupted.
But what happens when everyone is compromised? When everybody from the freshest intern to the owner of the company is solely interested in whatever benefits them, the company is destined to flounder.
The same applies to the sorry excuse we have for a democracy.
We saw this happen in real-time over the weekend following a week of disastrous PR for the government. There is no better example of how incompetence and greed can spell one’s downfall than the Labour Party. The fact that it’s all happening during the quiet season shows just how glaring the infighting has become. Those who underestimate the significance of this probably do not understand how culturally ingrained the whole ‘let’s do sweet fuck all in August’ mindset is in Malta. It’s not unlike asking someone to work during end of year holidays.
Let’s unpack this.
The argument that ‘greed undoes itself’ is a contentious one. Greed, like any other emotion, is a guttural human response. Like any other emotional response, it is triggered by the social conditions that underpin it. It is the theme song of the deprived who are willing to do whatever it takes to no longer be deprived. So the argument must evolve beyond simply saying “these people are greedy and that is why they’ve ruined the country.”
Similarly, one cannot reduce the whole equation to “human beings will always be greedy and the best we can hope for is to mitigate it.”
Greed is such a widespread trait in our society because poverty, ignorance, and a lack of genuine community support are enduring problems that have persisted for generations. Greed manifests itself when access to a better life becomes so out of reach that you are reduced to doing whatever it takes to achieve your objective. It is the sentiment one is left with when systems which are supposed to provide you with what you need instead give practically everything to a select few while the rest fight for crumbs.
If you must crush your fellow man’s windpipe on your way there, so be it. That is the real definition of greed: it is not just ‘wanting more than you could ever possibly enjoy.’ It is ‘wanting more than you could ever possibly enjoy and being willing to do the most reprehensible things imaginable for it.’
If we consider greed as a precursor chemical that is mass manufactured whenever the social hierarchy becomes deeply unfair and exploitative, institutionalised incompetence and eye-watering levels of corruption are the end products. What we witnessed over the past couple of weeks in Malta is all the theoretical analysis I carried out in this article coming to life.
Let’s start from the Labour Party’s outright embarrassing deputy leadership race. For a while, it seemed like we might bear witness to a comeback from the intolerable Jason Micallef, a particularly repulsive specimen from among the ranks of the Labour Party’s amoral loyalists. Then, a further turn towards the unpalatable – everyone from one of disgraced former prime minister Joseph Muscat’s lawyers to sitting MEP Alex Agius Saliba was mentioned.
Though the Labour Party insisted on barring the press from attending its extraordinary general conference, it is quite evident that Times of Malta and MaltaToday are all too happy to provide a free service to the Labour Party. All these “leaks” from this general conference serve a purpose, and my guess would be that the party strategically uses compliant journalists who want an insider scoop to soundboard potential candidates with the general public to see what the response is before an appointment is formalised.
In fact, Jason Micallef’s push for deputy leadership floundered the minute these two newspapers started publishing anonymous tidbits of information as it trickled in. Instead, he was given the most meaningless consolation prize imaginable, a practice which has become as institutionalised as the incompetence which it covers up for.
While this embarrassing contest continues, a raft of apparatchiks have made themselves scarce. Former policy and communications advisors Aleander Balzan and Ronald Vassallo resigned from the office of the prime minister. Right after Labour CEO Randolph Debattista called it quits, prime minister Robert Abela brought in Leonid McKay, snubbing one of the most loyal servants his party has ever had, former deputy head of communications Nigel Vella.
While Micallef got a made up position all for himself, Debattista was magically catapulted to the role of Malta’s permanent representative within the United Nations.
The cherry on top of the ‘Malta Tagħna Lkoll’ cake? The return of Rosianne Cutajar and the nth reshuffle of another government apparatchik to Transport Malta, Kurt Farrugia.
I think the notion that these regrettably familiar faces are overstaying their welcome goes beyond Joseph Muscat’s ongoing chokehold over the party. It is not simply an internal war in which one faction is competing with the other. The entire edifice is crumbling.
Whose fault is all this? Who is responsible for the societal failures that have led us to this point? What exactly has turned our society into a melting pot of cynicism, amoral familism, and ruthlessness, to the point where the ridiculous game of musical chairs outlined above has become par for the course?
This is where chronic incompetence in government leads to institutionalised greed and corruption. This is where avarice truly begins to undo itself – when it has been going on for so long with such success, it leads to a situation in which only the incompetent and the corrupt are able to make it to the very top.
It is the very same reason why the Labour Party is unable to evolve. It is the reason why the party is unable to remove any anchors from around its ankles, because those anchors are also the only thing holding the vessel near the shoreline as opposed to stranded in the middle of nowhere. When you are this incompetent, you cannot divorce yourself from corruption – you are dependent on it.
This is why people like Jason Micallef, Alex Agius Saliba, Randolph Debattista, Rosianne Cutajar, Kurt Farrugia and others of their ilk are unable to move on and do other things with their lives. This is why some of them had to patiently wait on the sidelines for months, or jump hoops for the party and its higher-ups while they jostle for more power. What else are they going to do?
The more you unravel it, the worse it becomes.
After decades of politics in which both major parties always chose to reward loyalty above competence, the foundation of what was supposed to be our democracy has grown rotten, to the point of becoming unusable. This system usurped everything else, a self-renewing fountain of incompetence which can only be run dry if the mains are turned off.
Worst of all, we’ve come to the turning point which other European democracies have already slid past – the normalisation of fascist rhetoric as the solution to these glaring failures. While fascism in Maltese politics is certainly not a new phenomenon, the discourse which you’d hear from a fascist seeking power has now become catnip for disaffected voters who, rightly so, feel like mainstream politics has sidelined them.
This is how democracy dies – to the sound of starving mobs descending on elected representatives who failed to heed the calls of the downtrodden because it benefited their wealthiest donors.
