Political Ambitions

Political Ambitions! What exactly do we mean when we claim that someone has political ambitions?  How do we arrive at such conclusions? What is the acceptable definition? What are the boundaries?  And the most important question, whether it is good or bad? 

Intrigued by these simple questions and yet struggled to find the right answers, I thought why not give an attempt to understand it myself with some help from the basics. Well, I do not carry enough political patronage in my pocket that I can manage to spend with ease. 

So the most basic approach, I can think of, is to to breakdown the phrase and try to understand the meaning of each word. As per Wikipedia's article, politics can be defined as "the practice and theory of influencing other people on a civic or individual level." And Ambition is "an eager or strong desire to achieve something". Automatically it follows that political ambition should be defined as nothing but the willingness to influence people i.e. to carry the power of people. Now why would anyone have such inclinations and what kind of power are we actually talking about? I can think of two possible reasons : 

1. Either, he/she is motivated with a materialistic desire to keep resources at his/her disposal 
2. There is a "genuine" drive from within to lead and give the people a direction (right or wrong)

Now it is imperative to evaluate the rights and wrongs of the motives before proceeding further. What is wrong with the first driving factor? I don't see materialism as a bad thing. It comes natural to human psyche. We all are materialistic. Then why do we expect that a politician should not possess materialistic desires? Irony, isn't it? And we are not gaining anything from this prospect, an unrealistic proposition to say the least. For these people, politics is another kind of business and I think there is nothing wrong in it. There can be bad and corrupt practice of doing business but if the motive is to "do business" the harm is limited. And ultimately we are the customer so we can always select a different business person. 

Now what's wrong with the second driving factor? Doesn't it sound too extreme, practically at least? If a politician is rearing a drive inside which is not materialistic in nature, don't you think that we should be more careful? Even a detailed assessment grounded on logical facts can be misleading as the barrier to his dubious inside always remains. One can only gamble in these cases, take a leap of faith. Basically the case of more the risk, more the gain/loss.

Finally, the conclusion should provide answer to the last question. Political ambition, Good or Bad? 

Again it depends on the motivational factors as defined earlier.

Case 1: Definitely not harmful. The onus lies on the public whether they have cracked the right business deal and person. I'll call it a safer option and preferably better. However the mindset toward them should change and they should be seen purely as business person. Evaluate them on the criteria if they'll be able to provide the best of their services. And give them a good offer that they cannot reject. Stop expecting that they should be doing free seva for you.  And I think I needn't say what should you be doing if you find that the businessman is a cheat.

Case 2: It can be very good or very bad. Be ready with your mitigation plans as the risk is too high. Evaluate more thoroughly and extensively. Take a leap of faith but do not not close your eyes. The chances of market crashing are quite high.