Habits of the Heart III: The Obligations of Professionals in Local Government (Summer Reading)

The participation of professionals in local government has become problematic, according to the authors of Habits of the Heart: Individualism and Commitment in American Life. Professional standards used to be ethics-oriented, but they have become predominately technical. "Being good becomes a matter of being good at things.” The problems professionals seek to solve are predominately strategic and technical problems.

A calling used to be “an occupation defined essentially in terms of its contribution to the common good." Now it is what we feel we were meant to do, what makes us happy, what brings us the sort of salary and respect and personal satisfaction we want. A calling in government, therefore, is seen not as devotion to the common good, but as a career choice: a career politician, a career administrator, a career comptroller. Or a stepping stone to a more lucrative career, a way to make contacts and do favors so that you can get a better job and higher salary (or more and bigger clients) than you had before entering government.

If you're a lawyer or realtor, you can even have it both ways. You can serve your community and you can increase your business at the same time. But to do so, you create conflicts. Not only the sort of conflicts dealt with in ethics codes, but other conflicts that cause the same sort of appearance problems that undermine the public trust in government.

For instance, two lawyers with prominent positions in my town's government once represented contending developers in a matter involving two contiguous shopping centers. The developers wanted to sway the public (my town has a town meeting), so they sent out fliers to everyone in town. Anonymous fliers. When the anonymity of the fliers was pointed out to the lawyers at a public meeting, they acted not like the public (who disliked this) or like public officials, who would be required to either support the public sentiment or explain why this sentiment was wrong, but rather as advocates for their clients. One even defended his client by saying that at least his client put a phone number on his flier, as if thousands of people would call it to discover who was behind the flier.

Rather than letting their clients know in advance that, in dealing with their community, the clients would have to trade the lawyers' prominence in the community for abiding by the lawyers' judgment about what was appropriate (e..g, no anonymous fliers), the lawyers put their clients' interests ahead of the public interest. What came first was their need to earn a living, even if that living was based in part on business they obtained due to their public service.

However, few government officials are capable of acknowledging that they put themselves first. They think in terms of what they deserve in return for the sacrifices they have made, for all they have done for their community. And they do something that is even more damaging: they "pretend they live in a kind of community that no longer exists,” that is, a town where the pillars of the community act out of noblesse oblige rather than personal interest, and where everything is discussed openly and honestly. Not only do they believe in this kind of community, but this belief is at the center of everything they say about their community, the vision they seek to get their neighbors to embrace. Even if it is false, and they contribute to what makes it false.

Except in very small towns, we cannot attain the spirit and practice of the New England town of earlier centuries, which is still our ideal (especially here in New England). Nor do most of us want to return to the homogeneity or religious strictness that held these communities together. The modern alternative most frequently pushed by those in government — running government like a business — is also undesirable, because the values of a business, and the obligations of its leaders, are very different from those in government.

The average citizen does not have an obligation to get involved in local government, although their participation is desirable to bring community and government together. But professionals, especially lawyers, do have an obligation to participate in their local government, especially when there is corruption that most people cannot understand. And if they are involved in government, they have to act as if they have two clients, clearing anything they do with both of them. If they are in a high position in government, they should let every client know that the government comes first. This will not lose them too many clients, because such a limitation is offset by their authority in the community. And, hopefully, for every client that would abandon them for this, other clients would gain increased respect for them.

See the other posts on this book:
Citizen Participation and the Public Trust
Civic Membership and the Common Good

Robert Wechsler
Director of Research-Retired, City Ethics

203-859-1959