It's true in a sense. Everyone is working on a better world.

For themselves.

Now that is a statement I can get behind.

If you get behind him you're probably making his world worse, though, by crowding him :-p

Unless my better world is one in which more people are better off.

That would be a great slogan for capitalism

A good friend of mine is a very senior civil servant in Ireland, and he says similar - most politicians are smart people sincerely trying to make the world a better place. I believe him. What's the alternative? Believing that all the world's problems would be fixed if only someone good-hearted would attempt to solve them?

Conversely, Ireland is also a major centre of global tax avoidance and civil servants are helping mega-corporations avoid European privacy legislation.

> Believing that all the world's problems would be fixed if only someone good-hearted would attempt to solve them?

That's a very cynical take.