banking services chronicle subscription published this article Still at least appearances are kept in most cases and decisions can be challenged in courts. What characterizes oligarchy is the extensive relentless and ruthless use of transcendent in lieu of inherent parameters to decide who will belong where who will get which job and ultimately who will enjoy which benefits. The trouble with transcendent parameters is that there is nothing much an applicant or a candidate can do about them. Usually they are accidents occurrences absolutely beyond the reach or control of those most affected by them. Race is such a transcendent parameter and so are gender familial affiliation or contacts and influence. In many corners of the globe to join a closed oligarchic club to get the right job to enjoy excessive benefits one must be white racism male sexual discrimination born to the right family nepotism or to have the right political or other contacts cronyism. And often belonging to one such club is the prerequisite for joining another. In France for instance the whole country is politically and economically run by graduates of the Ecole Normale dAdministration ENA. They are known as the ENArques =the royal dynasty of ENA graduates. The privatization of state enterprises in most East and Central European countries provided a glaring example of oligarchic machinations. In most of these countries the Czech Republic Macedonia Serbia and Russia are notorious examples state companies the nations only assets were sold to political cronies creating in the process a pernicious amalgam of capitalism and oligarchy known as crony capitalism or privateering. The national wealth was passed on to the hands of relatively few well connected individuals at a ridiculously low price. The nations involved were robbed their riches either squandered or smuggled abroad. In the affairs of humans not everything falls neatly into place. Take money for instance. Is it an inherent parameter or an expressly transcendent one Making money indicates the existence of some merit some inherent advantageous traits of the moneymaking individual. To make money consistently a person needs to be diligent resilient hard working to prevail and overcome hardships to be far sighted and to possess a host of other universally acclaimed traits. On the other hand is it fair when someone who made his fortune through corruption inheritance or luck be preferred to a poor genius That is a contentious issue. In the USA money talks. Being possessed of money means being virtuous and meritorious. To preserve a fortune inherited is as difficult a task as to make it in the first place the thinking goes. Thus the source of the money is secondary. An oligarchy tends to have long term devastating economic effects. The reason is that the best and the brightest when shut out by the members of the ruling elites emigrate. In a country where ones job is determined by his family connections or by influence peddling those best fit to do the job are likely to be disappointed then disgusted and then to leave the place altogether. This is the phenomenon known as Brain Drain. It is one of the biggest migratory tidal waves in human history. Capable welltrained educated young people leave their oligarchic arbitrary influence peddling societies and migrate to less arbitrary meritocracies mostly to be found in what is collectively known as The West. This is colonialism of the worst kind. The mercantilist definition of a colony is a territory which exports raw materials only to reimport them in the form of finished products. The Brain drain is exactly that the poorer countries are exporting raw brains and buying back the finished products masterminded invented and manufactured by theses brains. Yet while in classical colonialism the colony at least received some recompense for its goods here the poor country is actually the poorer for its exports. The bright young people who depart most of them never to return carry with them an investment of the scarce resources of their homeland and award it to their new much richer host countries. This is an absurd situation a subsidy granted reluctantly by the poor to the rich. This is also one of the largest capital transfers really capital flight in history. Some poor countries understood these basic unpleasant facts of life. They extracted an education fee from those emigrating. This fee was supposed to at least partially recapture the costs of educating and training the immigrants. Romania and the USSR imposed such levies on Jews emigrating to Israel in the 1970s. Others despairingly regard the brain drain as a natural catastrophe. Very few countries are trying to tackle the fundamental structural and philosophical flaws of the system the roots of the disenchantment of those who leave. The Brain Drain is so serious that some countries lost up to a third of their total young and educated population to it Macedonia in Southeastern Europe some less developed countries in South East Asia and in Africa. Others were drained of almost one half of the growth in their educated workforce for instance Israel during the 1980s. Brains are an ideal natural resource they can be cultivated directed controlled manipulated regulated. They are renewable and replicable. Brains tend to grow exponentially through interaction and they have an unparalleled economic value added. banking services chronicle subscription
