The Economist writes about the career choices of some of the brightest US students:
Look at where graduates of Harvard, for example, end up. In the 1970s, one in 20 who went straight into the workforce after graduation found jobs in the likes of finance or consulting. By the 1980s, that was up to one in five; in the 1990s, one in four. ...[I]n the past quarter-century there has been an even more pronounced shift: in 2024 fully half of Harvard graduates who entered the workforce took jobs in finance, consulting or technology.... More than before—more even than when your correspondent entered Harvard less than a decade ago—life on campus feels like a fast track to the corporate world. Finance, consulting and tech are gobbling up top students, the Economist, 19 December 2024
Why become a politician? Your past and present private lives will be scrutinised and anything unfavourable that you have done or said will be made public. You and your relatives will need more security. You will lose your anonymity and you won't (legally) make a lot of money. So it's understandable, though regrettable, that most of our top intellects forgo a career in politics for careers that are less exposed, less personally dangerous, and more lucrative. There will always be some who, at least initially, go into politics for noble, idealistic reasons. But it does seem likely that the majority of politicians are only moderately talented people whose main goal is to be close to, and acquire power. That's one reason, in my view, why the remit of governments tends to expand over time.
It's also one reason why governments are unlikely to be the first to issue Social Policy Bonds. While a bond regime would allow or, indeed, require governments to articulate society's wishes and to raise the revenue for the achievement, the bonds would see private-sector bodies competing with government agencies to be rewarded for actually achieving them. Only the most efficient investors in the bonds would benefit from holding them. Idealistic politicians would perhaps be interested in Social Policy Bonds, and investigate whether the efficiency gains that I foresee would in fact occur, to the benefit of a society's citizens. But today's crop of politicians would be reluctant, I imagine, to consider issuing the bonds unless they had been tried, tested and shown to be successful by private-sector bodies. Since the bonds would work best for goals considered very long term, it's going to be a long time before our politicians would consider issuing them. Even then, they'd struggle to relinquish the power they currently possess, and greatly value, to fund favoured bodies and to let the market make those decisions on the basis of efficiency. Realistically then, I'm hoping some private-sector body, be it a non-governmental organisation, a group of philanthropists, or a charitable foundation, will show some interest in the concept.
