“You owe it to your country to serve”
choongyong.koh January 4th, 2008
Alan Greenspan, the retired Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, US, published an interesting autobiography, “The Age of Turbulence”, recently. I am halfway through the book, but came across an interesting quote that I feel that I should blog about. In page 63 of the book, he was relating how he was convinced by his mentor Arthur Burns to join government service (as chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors first):
…Referring to the Watergate scandal, he (Arthur Burns) said, “This government is paralyzed. But there’s still an economy out there and we still have to make economic policy. You owe it to your country to serve.”
Alan Greenspan was a successful business-consultant providing economic forecasts to clients at that time, definitely someone belonging to the high-earner group. It was not higher salary that brought him to serve, it was a call of duty, it was because he owe it to his country to serve. He served for more than 20 years, before retiring on 31 January 2006.
Whoever said that only higher salary benchmarked to 77% or 88% of private sector pay will attract and retain talent to serve the country?
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