COMPARISONS WITH THE PRIVATE SECTOR
Remember when you first started your job how inexperienced you were. It takes many years of ‘battles’ in different day-to-day tasks, projects, and various business challenges for each one of us to become experienced in our work, to become a professional. No matter how good we were during our studies back in school/college/university, no matter how high our grades were in exams we took we were still inexperienced and amateurs when we started doing real work. Most of us adults are actually working adults so we can easily agree based on our working experience how important it is for one to get a real job in order to learn, grow and progress. Only with time, we turn from amateurs to professionals.
The conclusion from the paragraph above mainly concerns the private sector – where the big majority of adults are employed. And what about the public sector, politics, and voluntary activities. Throughout this platform, it is stressed how important it is to have informed, experienced and active citizens in the political arena in order to maintain a healthy society. Building the economy (private sector) is crucial but we also need the second and third sectors: public & voluntary sectors in order to achieve both – healthy economy and a healthy society.
FROM MARKET COMPETITION TO POLITICAL ARENA
In addition to being employed and working in the private sector, many people have been participating in the third sector either directly by doing voluntary work for an NGO or indirectly by donating money to a third sector organization for the cause they support based on personal values. Any sort of involvement in the third sector whether direct or indirect is worth complimenting so you should be encouraged to do more of the same.
Those that have direct experience in working for the third sector organization know that it is a completely different story compared to the private sector. The skills for running/working for a successful corporation differ from the set of skills for running/working for an NGO. As a result, we have professionals that have focused their entire careers on the third sector.
The same can be said for public sector officials that have been employed by an organization in the second sector. There are not as many people employed in the public sector (which is actually good because we should have a small government) compared to the private and even voluntary sectors. However one of the areas which get the least attention is the one that belongs to the second sector: the political arena. And while there might be public sector officials among us
THE DREADFUL POLITICAL ARENA
Many people refrain from this area because it is widely associated with corruption, inertia, uselessness, and clientelism. The activity of participating in politics is as bad as the word it defines the area of participation: politics. Just the mention of that word invokes negative feelings and thoughts. Any positive connotation with the word politics such as politics for caretaking elderly or abandoned animals, politics for boosting organic agriculture, and politics for a good welfare program is not even considered.
We are automatically self discouraged or we discourage others to enter the political arena which in turn prevents the creation of political professionals, the acquirement of necessary skills, and effective political activity. In short, it enables political establishment which is a similar phenomenon compared to market monopoly. At the same time, the political arena has a HUGE influence on the development of both the private and voluntary sectors and their subdivision: national and local government and every institution in the public sector.
If we desire to achieve a functional and healthy society as a whole, it should be a society that encourages entering the political arena. And for those that do enter the dreadful arena of politics, we should tolerate any amateurism they might display just like we tolerated amateurism of young employees. We should turn from prohibitors to mentors.
