Share
Explore
Seeing Red
For those of you that know me, you’ve watched me work obsessively these last seven years on the problem of governance. For those who don’t know me, hi, I’m Connor McCormick. I first became interested in the question of governance in 2013 when I briefly moved to Ecuador to live with a local family. While I lived there I saw incredible industry and creativity that operated at a backdrop of extreme corruption. And that corruption repeatedly undermined and sapped energy from the creative work of our community. Experiencing corruption first-hand convinced me that it’s the only problem to work to solve.
My Ecuadorian family owned a factory manufacturing water filters which we would sell (and donate thanks to support from The Red Cross) to nearby communities. In Ecuador, water borne illnesses are a common cause of disease and especially childhood mortality. In a process that almost felt like magic, using our hands and a hot kiln we were able to transform clay and wood chippings into clean water. The filters that came out of our process have since been awarded the highest water-purity rating by the European Union. It’s some of the most rewarding work I’ve done.
The labor was exhausting and manual, but no part was more taxing than working the press which squeezed the clay mixture into the flower-pot shape of the finalized water filter. The press had to be operated by hand by pumping a long broken metal rod, and so we were extremely excited when finally a newly commissioned hydraulic press arrived, a beautiful bright red construction built in a nearby metal shop that would allow us to double the output of the factory with no more than the press of a button.
It lived two days. That night, while the groundskeeper was away, a huge circular saw chopped through the cinderblocks that made up the wall of the factory. By the next morning, the only remaining sign of our hydraulic press was the furrow it left in the dirt and the tracks of the truck that carried it away. Later we would learn that the thieves had stolen it for nothing more than to melt it down and sell the metal scraps.
I’ve never felt more indignation. My frustration was only exacerbated by the fact that everyone else was so equanimous as we went back to pumping the press by hand. This sort of thing just happened here, they told me. What would the police do? I demanded. They just laughed. Pulling the thread of the police’s inaction caused people to check their surroundings. In the privacy of our car bouncing down the highway I finally coaxed an answer. Over the thunder of the engine they whispered an explanation of corruption, and incompetence, and a president that couldn’t be criticized. And I wasn’t advised, so much as could sense, that this was the sort of topic to avoid in mixed company.
Our beautiful red hydraulic press was one more casual casualty of corruption. The $10,000 machine — no small amount of money, least of all in Ecuador where the average annual salary is barely double that — never even got a paint chip in the course of making a filter before it was once again an ingot for sale on some shelf.
Of course, this story is not unique to Ecuador. This archetype plays out in all countries, on all different magnitudes and domains. Whether it’s insider trading in Congress, or kickbacks to regulators, or banks too big to fail, or apathy on climate change, or companies rushing out misaligned AI in a bid for market share, or the mounting likelihood of a nuclear war that threatens to leave nothing more to posterity than frozen shadows on the wall. The prize for solving the problem of governance is the ability to address all of those big problems, but my vendetta is much simpler. For me, governance is about getting my red hydraulic press fucking back.
Want to print your doc?
This is not the way.
This is not the way.
Try clicking the ⋯ next to your doc name or using a keyboard shortcut (
CtrlP
) instead.