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Summer Reading: What Money Can't Buy I
Tuesday, September 11th, 2012
Robert Wechsler
Harvard professor Michael Sandel's new book What Money
Can't Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets (Farrar Straus, 2012) has a
lot to say about the effect of commercial, market values on American
culture, including on American government. Sandel's book focuses on
"the expansion of markets, and of market values, into spheres of
life where they don't belong. … We need to ask whether there are
some things money should not buy." This question leads us to the core of government ethics.
What we often fail to consider is that a market approach to government comes with certain norms, which may not be appropriate to it. A market approach places a monetary value on goods and assumes that the principal way of handling these goods is exchange. Monetary value is not the principal value of the public goods government deals with, nor is exchange the principal way they are handled. Public goods are shared or distributed on the basis of need. Tolls may be appropriate for bridges, but charging for schools (1) ignores their usefulness to society as a whole, not only to the parents of children currently in school, and (2) would lead many children to have to do without school.
Examples of spheres of life where market values cause problems include for-profit schools, hospitals, and prisons, all of which have led to serious government ethics problems. Others that relate to government include the sale of naming rights to schools, parks, and other civic spaces, and advertising in schools, which have also raised government ethics issues. And then there is campaign financing, which has led the public to see individuals and companies as buying elections. In short, government is a principal part of our culture where market values not only don't belong, but lead to conflicts, scandals, and an undermining of public trust in government.
The Corruption of Things That Matter
Sandel breaks the arguments against the expansion of market values into two categories: those that deal with inequality and those that deal with corruption. The latter category seems most clearly relevant to government ethics, but he is talking about a different sort of corruption: the degradation of things by having them be bought or sold. "We believe that civic duties should not be regarded as private property but should be viewed instead as public responsibilities."
This may not be what we generally mean when we talk about corruption in government, but in a certain sense it is exactly what we mean. Elections are degraded by too much money being spent or by the purchase of votes. Public service is degraded when individuals use it (1) as a way to rack up favors from which they can make money as lobbyists or (2) as a way to help their development or construction company. And no one likes it when an official acts as if he has a right to his position, as if it were his private property. We prefer it when officials act in ways that show that they recognize the responsibilities that accompany their positions.
As Sandel writes, when there is a market for government access or favors, it degrades government "by treating it as a source of private gain rather than as an instrument of the public good." This happens to be the central concept in government ethics.
A community is degraded when those who manage the community put their personal interests ahead of the public interest and, thereby, cause scandals. We aren't angry at corrupt officials just because they're corrupt, but because what they do taints our community and makes us feel we can't trust our leaders. A corrupt government is something entirely different in our minds from a government that goes out of its way to ensure that its officials act in the public interest by, for example, creating an effective, independent ethics program.
Private Markets
The inequality-related arguments against the over-expansion of market values are equally important to government ethics. Inequality is about fairness, and fairness is the goal of government ethics rules such as those regarding preferential treatment.
There are cities in California that offer jail cell upgrades for up to $127 a night, and cities elsewhere where you can buy the right to use car-pool lanes all by yourself. There is a company that makes a profit out of selling spots in line for Congressional hearings, which are supposed to be open to the public on a first-come basis. Large campaign contributors can effectively buy open access to officials and positions on government boards that can be valuable to them financially.
And, of course, there are government jobs given to cronies who often lack qualifications, no-bid contracts given to friends and family members, and skybox seats and free vacations given to officials. There are police forces, like in the Bronx, that have a policy of professional courtesy, by which tickets given to VIPs and friends of officials are torn up.
In the first list of examples above, officials have embraced fair competition required by the market, but applied it in situations that are inappropriate to things like jail, the environment, and access to officials. The examples in the second list go beyond this. In these instances, officials have created private markets through the giving and taking of personal favors, rather than a public market (competitive applications for jobs and permits, and good old-fashioned bribery) regulated by civil service, procurement, gift, and criminal rules.
In other words, the acceptable public market aspects of government, the fair competition for jobs and contracts, which everyone supports and which in no way taint government, require regulation in the form of rules and their enforcement, including those that are part of a government ethics program. It is not competition itself that is a problem here, but the sort of private, unregulated competition that allows the unfair distribution of government resources to officials and those with whom they have special relationships.
Local government is supposed to manage a community. The unfair distribution of government resources makes people feel that government is something else: an organization that exists not for the sake of the community, but for the sake of people in the government, and their friends, family, and party members. Yes, unfairness and corruption are not as far apart as they seem.
The goal of government ethics programs is to prevent, to the extent possible, the misuse and unfair distribution of government resources and the way this degrades the government, turning it into something other than a responsible manager of the community.
Click here to go to part II of this review.
Robert Wechsler
Director of Research-Retired, City Ethics
---
What we often fail to consider is that a market approach to government comes with certain norms, which may not be appropriate to it. A market approach places a monetary value on goods and assumes that the principal way of handling these goods is exchange. Monetary value is not the principal value of the public goods government deals with, nor is exchange the principal way they are handled. Public goods are shared or distributed on the basis of need. Tolls may be appropriate for bridges, but charging for schools (1) ignores their usefulness to society as a whole, not only to the parents of children currently in school, and (2) would lead many children to have to do without school.
Examples of spheres of life where market values cause problems include for-profit schools, hospitals, and prisons, all of which have led to serious government ethics problems. Others that relate to government include the sale of naming rights to schools, parks, and other civic spaces, and advertising in schools, which have also raised government ethics issues. And then there is campaign financing, which has led the public to see individuals and companies as buying elections. In short, government is a principal part of our culture where market values not only don't belong, but lead to conflicts, scandals, and an undermining of public trust in government.
The Corruption of Things That Matter
Sandel breaks the arguments against the expansion of market values into two categories: those that deal with inequality and those that deal with corruption. The latter category seems most clearly relevant to government ethics, but he is talking about a different sort of corruption: the degradation of things by having them be bought or sold. "We believe that civic duties should not be regarded as private property but should be viewed instead as public responsibilities."
This may not be what we generally mean when we talk about corruption in government, but in a certain sense it is exactly what we mean. Elections are degraded by too much money being spent or by the purchase of votes. Public service is degraded when individuals use it (1) as a way to rack up favors from which they can make money as lobbyists or (2) as a way to help their development or construction company. And no one likes it when an official acts as if he has a right to his position, as if it were his private property. We prefer it when officials act in ways that show that they recognize the responsibilities that accompany their positions.
As Sandel writes, when there is a market for government access or favors, it degrades government "by treating it as a source of private gain rather than as an instrument of the public good." This happens to be the central concept in government ethics.
A community is degraded when those who manage the community put their personal interests ahead of the public interest and, thereby, cause scandals. We aren't angry at corrupt officials just because they're corrupt, but because what they do taints our community and makes us feel we can't trust our leaders. A corrupt government is something entirely different in our minds from a government that goes out of its way to ensure that its officials act in the public interest by, for example, creating an effective, independent ethics program.
Private Markets
The inequality-related arguments against the over-expansion of market values are equally important to government ethics. Inequality is about fairness, and fairness is the goal of government ethics rules such as those regarding preferential treatment.
There are cities in California that offer jail cell upgrades for up to $127 a night, and cities elsewhere where you can buy the right to use car-pool lanes all by yourself. There is a company that makes a profit out of selling spots in line for Congressional hearings, which are supposed to be open to the public on a first-come basis. Large campaign contributors can effectively buy open access to officials and positions on government boards that can be valuable to them financially.
And, of course, there are government jobs given to cronies who often lack qualifications, no-bid contracts given to friends and family members, and skybox seats and free vacations given to officials. There are police forces, like in the Bronx, that have a policy of professional courtesy, by which tickets given to VIPs and friends of officials are torn up.
In the first list of examples above, officials have embraced fair competition required by the market, but applied it in situations that are inappropriate to things like jail, the environment, and access to officials. The examples in the second list go beyond this. In these instances, officials have created private markets through the giving and taking of personal favors, rather than a public market (competitive applications for jobs and permits, and good old-fashioned bribery) regulated by civil service, procurement, gift, and criminal rules.
In other words, the acceptable public market aspects of government, the fair competition for jobs and contracts, which everyone supports and which in no way taint government, require regulation in the form of rules and their enforcement, including those that are part of a government ethics program. It is not competition itself that is a problem here, but the sort of private, unregulated competition that allows the unfair distribution of government resources to officials and those with whom they have special relationships.
Local government is supposed to manage a community. The unfair distribution of government resources makes people feel that government is something else: an organization that exists not for the sake of the community, but for the sake of people in the government, and their friends, family, and party members. Yes, unfairness and corruption are not as far apart as they seem.
The goal of government ethics programs is to prevent, to the extent possible, the misuse and unfair distribution of government resources and the way this degrades the government, turning it into something other than a responsible manager of the community.
Click here to go to part II of this review.
Robert Wechsler
Director of Research-Retired, City Ethics
---
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