Loyalty is a Virtue?

 Everyone agrees that loyalty is a virtue. As children, we are taught that we need to be loyal to our families. Schools do their best to ensure that we are loyal to the school and our friends look for loyalty form us. Later on, life, we go to work for people who expect us to be loyal to them. Politicians take great pride in reminding us that we need “loyalty” to the country. Just about every society on the planet turns “loyal” foot soldiers into heroes.

Having said that, I do believe that loyalty is a wonderfully misunderstood concept and one which is often abused by people in power, who seem to forget that loyalty runs both ways. This was brought home to me by an article in the Independent on the now homeless former Vice-President, Mr. Mike Pence:

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/pence-homeless-couch-surfing-indiana-b1793261.html

 

 As a matter of disclosure, I actually oppose much of what Mr. Pence stood for (extreme religious conservatism that spills into the public sphere). However, I’m sympathetic to how Mr. Pence’s tenure in office ended because it is probably the most visible example of how loyalty is often abused. In the four years of the Trump Administration, Mr. Pence was an exceedingly loyal vice-president who worked for a boss who had built his very public image on being exceedingly difficult to work with. Mr. Pence, who is known for being exceedingly religious to the point of being dull (there are a range of jokes which centre around him thinking of women in pants as being undressed) even stuck by Mr. Trump in the moments when Mr. Trump was behaving in a manner that one can only be described as being contrary to Mr. Pence’s religious beliefs.

How was Mr. Pence rewarded for being loyal to the point of being a slave? The result was visible on 6 January 2021 with the storming of the Capitol Building and crowds calling for him to be hanged. Why was Mr. Pence unable to do as his boss asked? Well, let’s start with the fact that it would have been legally dubious. Now, Mr. Pence has to stay relatively hidden, not from his political opponents on the left of the political spectrum but from the people whom his former boss cultivated. He remains loathed by the left/liberal wing for his loyalty to Mr. Trump and now he is loathed by Mr. Trump’s followers for not “helping” their boss stay in power.

Mr. Pence’s story of having his loyalty abused, is only the most extreme example. The corporate jungle is filled with horror stories of ground level workers who give their lives for a company. Then, one day, the company either find cheaper labour or in this modern age, a machine that does not need to be paid or take lunch breaks or leave.

One of the saddest examples used to be found in the Singapore Armed Forces (SAF). You had members of the Specialist and Warrant Officer Corps who would spend their lives trying to help the armed force function. Then, after 30-odd years of loyal service, these men who more often than not join the army with minimal academic qualifications, find themselves out in the open market without a recognizable and employable skill.

 

Men who wore these, held positions of high-level management

 

Unfortunately, they lack a skill and they end up here as a retirement plan.

In fairness the Ministry of Defense (MINDEF) is giving signs that it does recognize the problem. The ranks of the “non-unformed” sector of the Ministry are being filled up with former non-commissioned members of the armed forces. Then there’s the created post of “operation manager” in schools.

However, while the treatment of former Warrant Officers is improving, the loyalty shown by their employer to their service, it pales in comparison to the loyalty that the Ministry shows the officer or specifically the scholar core. One only has to think of how two “Chiefs of Defense Force” have ended up as the CEO of SMRT with a small S$2,000,000 annual salary. What did these men do for the armed forces? They planned and strategized and gave members of the Warrant Officer and Specialist Corp things to get done.

 

Highest Rank in the Singapore Military?  

Every nation has a story of how years of loyal service get burned in the name of corporate profits or the “national good.” What can we do about it?

My personal theme has always been than people need to learn how to work cross culturally and find ways of earning “side-hustle” money. One of the major problems in the “loyalty” equation is that it mirrors the power equation. Corporations for example are only loyal to their shareholders and have an obligation to make money. Workers in the system are only a means for them to earn money for their shareholders. By contrast, a worker needs the corporation in order to support his or her livelihood and in many cases the well being of their families. Who needs who more? The answer here is to find ways for the people lower down the food chain to have more “power.” That’s probably something that the people at the top of the food chain are not about to try and solve.