I was discussing this with a colleague over lunch, and thought I’d throw it out for comments. (Kinda need a distraction from real life at the moment…too depressing.)
Self-perpetuation is the fundamental motivation of bureaucracies and institutions. To wit, individuals who derive perceived benefits from the status quo will generally act in such a way as to further that status quo. This applies especially to institutional elites, since they most often possess the capacity to shape policy and encourage particuar avenues of action.
Necessary corollary to this rule: Benign neglect, or institutional inertia, can be as powerful a guiding political force as direct acts of self-interest (and is, arguably, far more widespread). That is, individuals who derive perceived benefits from the status quo will generally not seek to facilitate actions which do not directly advance their own interests or actively maintain the status quo.
Despite the double negatives in the last paragraph, these maxims describe discrete phenomena: it’s the difference between pursuing a course of action which is in your interest (a senator sponsoring a bill which provides subsidies to her state, or a business executive seeking to staff a new department which would give him more institutional power) and declining to pursue a course of action which isn’t in your interest (the subsidy bill being bottlenecked in committee because the members have other bills which are of higher priority to them, and the new department failing to find funding because a higher-level executive didn’t care enough about it to fight for its implementation). Both, however, are equally potent ways in which the status quo is generally perpetuated absent significant internal desire for change.
Bottom line: if you’re ever wondering why something happened the way it did, take a look at the political actors involved. Most often, it boils down to the degree to which each actor (individual or institution) had a personal stake in the matter, combined with the capacity for change possessed by that actor. I find it to be a handy thumbnail metric.
Ever read Honest Graft by George Washinton Plunkitt, the famed politican boss? He argues “corruption” is a good thing becuase politicians without a vested interest won’t get anything done.
His perspective is if Government is in reality a Business, it should be run like one.
So, he get’s richer, and the people get a park.
Here in Boston it’s costing us, what, 12 billion dollars to build a 6 mile, 8 lane tunnel under groud. I haven’t done the math, but that’s about a million a square foot at least I reckon. You think maybe a little is being skimmed off the top?
Well, if the company didn’t get anything done without insider trading, it would be valid. I don’t know if I like Plunkitt’s outlook, but it has some merit.
Hmm, but at least in the section you quoted, there’s no reference to the need to get anything done:
This is after they’ve already decided to do it. As opposed to saying, “I buy the land first, then I support the legislation” or even just “I support the legislation because I have land there”. The fact that in some cases other people benefit is non sequitur here. One could equally well own a park that was intended to be used for landfill or an incinerator and make a profit, while upsetting local residents.
Also, in any trade, someone benefits (usually the buyer and the company seeling the shares). This does not automatically make every trade, no matter how it is conducted, ethical.
If one places the need to “get things done” ahead of all other ethics, then in some sense the approach has “merit”. But things can “get done” without resorting to graft, etc. Gadarene’s argument admits of self-interest, but not necessarily of corruption. One can be motivated by self-interest and still act in an ethical manner.
Don’t care much for Plunkitt’s view, I guess.
I also don’t see how you get to “government should be run like a business” from the quote you gave. I supposed there’s more to it in the book?
Joel: You (and he) are assuming facts not in evidence. I’d submit that government is not a business, and shouldn’t be run like one. That being said, the OP applies equally well to both government and business–anything possessing a bureaucratic or institutional structure.
As ren points out, though, my observation doesn’t in any way preclude ethical constraints. The model I use may well explain the proliferation of insider trading or bribery, but it doesn’t condone those things. I’ve spoken at length in other threads about the distinction between long-term and short-term rationality–that is, something which seems in our interest now may prove to be greatly detrimental in the future. Enlightened self-interest takes more into account than simply, “How does this help me now?”
Come to think of it, jmullaney, you and I went over this to a degree in the McCain-Feingold thread. Your argument remains less than compelling.
ren:
Well-stated. My argument is that since self-perpetuation is the driving motivation of institutions, derived benefits to those people external of the institution are likely to be largely incidental–except insofar as granting external benefits will contribute to the self-perpetuation.
to add some complexity to the original formulation:
Sales seminars often focus on the fact that people don’t buy something because the need it, they buy something because they THINK threy need it (or want it). Hence, the sales proposition is not necessarily about explaining the actual value of something, but about creating a perception of value in the mond of the customer, sufficient to get him to pay the price you want.
This leaves a lot of room for the skilled politician to break potential gridlock/apathy and make some sort of progress with his own agenda. He or she builds consensus by creating sufficient perception in the minds of his potential allies that the program is in their self-interest, regardless of its objective worth.
So it’s not only a matter of preserving the status quo, it’s also a matter of who’s the best salesman (or saleswoman).
ren: Very true. I was careful in the original post to use phrases like “perceived benefits.” Not only will actors–again, individuals and institutions–feel different degrees of self-interest toward potential courses of action, but there’s no guarantee that a person’s perception of their vested interest is objectively accurate…and, if it is accurate, to what extent and for how long.
[hijack]This is also why the phrase “in the national interest” is largely a meaningless shibboleth–a practicable consensus can often be derived, but it consists mostly of sustained persuasion by self-interested advocates, a neutral or disinterested center, and the lack of legitimate, vocal opposition. In reality, there are too many variegated present in the formulation of our public policy (and in public opinion itself) for most things truly to be to the measurable benefit of the nation at large.[/hijack]
Everything you need to know about practical politics is contained in the hilarious books Yes, Minister and Yes, Prime Minister. The TV show is good; the books are far better and include much more material. No wonder Thatcher thought Sir Antony Jay and Jonothan Lynn were dead on. These books bring up your points, and many others, in chapter one and make them seem self-evident.
I’ve read both the Minister books–very, very funny.
And yeah, you’re right…these points are self-evident. The trouble is, no one ever applies them as such. Is the analysis flawed in any significant way as to make it not generally applicable? David Easton’s Black Box theory comes to mind: it’s so vague that there’s no profit in applying the system to practical cases.
Gad, I think the problem here is that there is no debate offered by the OP. Your analysis is not flawed in any significant way, but it is an analysis only, with no qualitative opinion offered on the politics of “self interest.”
Fortunately, you offered the following assertion in response to ren…
And now, a debate!
I submit that your assertion can be offered as a basis for equally valid arguments in favor of —cue dramatic music— BIG GUMMINT (i.e. government meddling in the affairs of business and the use of tax monies to support welfare programs and grand public works), and [sub]little government[/sub].
Here’s my groove: If we take as given that external benefits delivered by institutions can only be derived from the self interest of those institutions, then we must ask which institutions are more likely to perceive self interest in delivery of those benefits. Further, we must ask what methods can be employed by society to encourage the perception and increase the reality of those self interests.
Fair points, xeno. I’d still argue that external benefits can be derived incidentally (so long as those benefits aren’t counter to the interests of the institution), but by and large I think that your assertion’s correct.
There’s a fine line, too, when it comes to “encouraging” the perception of self-interest investiture; sanctioning short-term interest gains in exchange for societal advancement (the most common way, I think, in which institutional benefits are externalized) seems to me to run dangerously close to maverick capitalism along the lines of jmullaney’s “honest graft.” Throwing tax monies, that is, not at public works programs but at corporate subsidies, in the hopes that those businesses will see the quid and raise you quo–a sort of liberal-developmentalist model of your BIG GUMMINT boogeyman. To my mind, if we (as a republic) facilitate institutional self-interest, then there must be regulatory mechanisms in place to counterbalance the inevitable instances in which that self-interest does run counter to the interests of society. I always crack up when people talk about the creeping socialism of American government, because since the Open Door Notes at the turn of the century, the government has done far more to assist big business in its interest-seeking than it has to discourage it–an imbalance which has often been to the detriment of the American people as a rough whole.
Rather than buy into the primacy of immediate self-interest, then, I’d suggest we switch around our national priorities a little. Start thinking longer term. For example, the median wage of American workers in real dollars has actually declined since 1973. Without turning this into a thread about economic policy, it’s worthwhile to point out that a main reason consumer purchasing power–and the concomitant corporate profits–hasn’t mirrored real wages is that, thanks to credit, most people can purchase beyond their means. I’d submit that such an economic house of (credit) cards isn’t the most stable base upon which a good economy can be sustained. Yet so long as institutional power is focused on short-term interest gains, our view of long-term cost and consequence remains somewhat myopic.
In the interest of spicing things up, let me say that I view the difference between short-term and long-term interest, in the extreme, as the fundamental thing that separates libertarianism from utilitarianism.
jmullaney, damnit man, I thought I was done hearing about the Big Dig!
Overriding rule of politics? How about: overriding rule of interaction, period. Isn’t this what so many people try and point out, that people are selfish and don’t want to “help” something they aren’t directly aided by? Of course. I find this self-evident. I also find this to be a great reason why politics fighting big-business isn’t such a hot idea, because that pits one powerful group up against one rich group. Hmm, little back scratching anyone?
However, some find that this self-interest can only be truly expressed by mild-altruism or, as its been put in another post, “Kind But Not Naive” ideology. Pshaw, I say. Because of the hope of limiting business’s power, we find that we’ve given politicians an unprecidented amount of it (in America’s past, anyway, not world history). Yuck! I also think that the ideas behind libertarian economics aren’t necessarily rooted in short term or long term growth. I think its pretty clear that so long as we have a semi-free economy of some sort growth is gonna be much larger than before. I think its a matter of who does the growing.
This is too Onion-esque to pass up. In the wake of the Alex Rodriguez signing, there’s an article on the ESPN website about whether skyrocketing player salaries are detrimental to baseball. Central to the discussion is Rodriguez’s agent, Scott Boras, who has a distinct reputation for being the toughest of the tough when it comes to contract negotiations.
Anyway, the name of the article, on ESPN.com’s front page, is Doom and Gloom? No Way, Says Boras, and beneath that headline is this utter gem:
Are you kidding me?? What’s next? “O.J. Simpson declared innocent, says O.J. Simpson.” “Gore the winner in Florida, proclaims Gore.” C’mon now…
