-Charlie Munger, Vice Chairman of Berkshire Hathaway
The first tenet of the revolution is based on human nature: people respond to incentives. Whistleblowers do not come forward because they are well-paid to keep quiet. They are not motivated. We need to incentivize the behavior we want so that people are now actively engaged in looking for fraud and unethical acts within corporations and governments.
To do this, a "DOGE Fund" is to be established, where any person of any country who is aware of any corporate or government malfeasance or any illegal or unethical acts taking place can be reported for a substantial financial reward.
For example, an executive at a corporation that receives federally-funded money knows that the company she works for is effectively stealing $50 million annually from taxpayers. She has no positive incentives to oust her employer. Doing so would mean ousting herself from an excellent, well-paying job with extensive benefits. However, with the DOGE Fund in place, we have switched around the incentives. She reports the fraud; the company is investigated, fined, purged, or liquidated – funding the DOGE’s fund as well. Now, we, the people, vote on how much her DOGE-Fund reward should be. The median value is selected. If we the people agree that she deserves $5 million, $50 million, or $100 million as a reward, it is granted. She saved the American people hundreds of millions of dollars. Is $5 million or $50 million too much? She may have ruined her career and needs to be taken care of more than she would have been by her previous employer. Otherwise, no one would be risking anything.
With this single act, countless aspects of business and government are transformed. The incentives are now on the side of the right, and "we the people" are in control instead of corrupt corporations or politicians. Employees would be actively engaged in looking for fraud, waste, and corruption rather than actively trying to hide it for self-preservation. It would no longer be financially feasible for corporations to effectively bribe employees with generous compensation packages to hide hundreds of millions in fraud. The DOGE Fund payment would exceed any corporation’s ability to pay out.
Employees also know that if they do not come forward, another employee will implicate them in a cover-up, and eliminate their own lottery-sized payout, thus motivating everyone to confess timely and thoroughly for the sake of self-preservation. Everybody, save the guilty, wins. It would be unprofitable for corporations to be fraudulent. All employees would be incentivized to comb through corporate policies and transactions looking for fraud. The DOGE's Fund costs the taxpayers nothing, and citizens have a free army of millions of corruption seekers.
Even on a smaller scale, incentivizing employees is beneficial. Millions of people work for companies that knowingly produce unhealthy, addictive, or flawed products that damage the environment or take advantage of citizens in some way. There are countless quiet, hard-working people who know what is actually going on but fear for their livelihood and, therefore, have no incentives for doing the right thing.
Mechanically speaking, this internal system is not anonymous, but the results and whistleblowers are. Fraud and abuse of the DOGE Fund system is possible. Countless cut-throat corporations and political rivals would love nothing more than to take down their competition by submitting false accusations. Everything will need to be properly investigated and corroborated.
Once enacted, it is unlikely that only one person will come forward for any single act. Evidence will pour in from multiple sources adding more evidence and pieces to the puzzle.
Certainly, media organizations could take part in exposing fraud and corruption for a DOGE’s reward as well. In an increasingly difficult market, news organizations are struggling to remain profitable and in business. A DOGE’s fund incentive could restore quality reporting, which is an absolute requirement for the republic. Resources have been forced to fake news, sensationalize tiny problems, and clickbait like "reporting" to remain financially solvent.
Unlike previous generations, we are less willing to keep secrets that hurt others only for the sake of personal financial gain. Look at WikiLeaks. Look at Edward Snowden. There are countless other whistleblowers that are not satisfied with doing immoral things for personal gain. They are heroes. Looking for no incentives save to do what is morally right. While the DOGE Fund won’t fix everything, it will bring to the light everything that needs to be fixed.
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