Summary: influence doesn’t always work, especially with a big, long-standing problem, and so committing all resources to influence is highly likely to be a waste that punishes the best in society and enriches the worst.
Ever heard these words before?
“If you like paying taxes so much, why don’t you send more money to the government?”
“If you hate it so much, why don’t you quit your job and go protest against it all the time?”
“If you don’t like the fact that it’s made in China with child labor and pollutes the environment, then why don’t you find an alternative (when there are no effective alternatives)?”
“I would like you to accept my offer of a position to fix the problems you are complaining about. You’ll have few authorities and not that many resources, but I’m sure you can make it work, since you’re so dedicated to the cause. You’re the right person for the job.”
All of these have two things in common:
– Someone is asking you for charity.
– There is no clear plan or strategic approach with a high probability of producing the utility improvement that you would desire.
I believe the most correct response is “because (action X) is mostly ineffective by itself, as it relies on influence, which by no means guarantees success. If I were to accept your offer, and sacrifice myself in this way, since I’ve consequently committed myself to asceticism/martyrdom, I should maximize the benefit of my loss – and kill/coerce the individuals responsible. Following that to its logical conclusion, I should wage war against the entire corrupt system. At that point, we no longer are attempting to reach mutually acceptable resolution through rational persuasion.” If your interrogator is a jerk, you can follow up with “Do I need to do something about you, or do you believe that we should try to find a peaceful and effective means of resolving the issue?”
Specifically in the authority without responsibility case, the response should be “you’re incompetent as a manager because you withhold the truly effective levers of authority and decision process and tell people to use unstructured influence instead.”
Indeed, if we were to accept this line of reasoning, all righteous people would be destitute, taxed into poverty, while the rest of society laughs at them. That’s a recipe for disaster.