The Kingdom of Individuals I: Three Duties and the Organizational Contract
In <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Kingdom-Individuals-Self-Respect-Obligation-Paper…; target="”_blank”"><i>The
Kingdom
of
Individuals</i></a> (Cornell University Press, 1993), F. G.
Bailey's principal concern is what he calls svejks (pronounced
"shvikes"), that is, individuals in organizations who put their
personal, but not usually financial interests ahead of the organization, and yet
act as if they are loyal to the
organization, using its proclaimed values to defend their actions. This
is not the sort of conflict of interest that is ordinarily dealt with
in government ethics. But what the author
says
about the conflicts of interest in organizations, including
governments, is valuable,
and often fascinating.<br>
<br>
So in the next few blog posts, I will riff on ideas raised in this book.<br>
<br>
Svejkism, as Bailey presented it,
involves a conflict of moralities, an “argument about where
duty lies."<span> </span></span>But government
organizations differ in an important way from other organizations. They
add a third level of duty to duties to oneself (and one's family) and
to one's organization.<br>
<br>
Duty
to the organization's best interests, not to mention to one's
supervisor's, is not necessarily the same as duty to the public
interest. In a poor ethical environment, a government employee is
caught between her own interests, her superior's interests, her
organization's interests (usually the leaders' interests), and the
public interest. This puts an
enormous pressure on such an employee. In fact, this pressure is one of
the worst consequences of a poor ethical environment, and one that is
too often ignored (see <a href="http://www.cityethics.org/content/intimidation-%E2%80%94-worst-offense-…; target="”_blank”">my
recent
blog
post
on
intimidation</a>).<br>
<br>
Bailey wrote that, in formal organizations, “the pattern of ethics that
is
imposed,
emphasizing duty, puts the organization in a privileged position.<span> </span>The employees are no longer employees;
they've become an integral part of the organization, morally involved,
and what
is good for it is by definition good for them.<span></span>”<br>
<br>
In other words, whereas government ethics takes the position that what
is ethical for government employees is to act in the public interest,
the organization they work in, when it is led by individuals who do not
emphasize the obligation to act first and foremost in the public
interest, presents to its employees a different ethics, where it is the
organization rather than the public interest to which the employees owe
their principal obligation.<br>
<br>
Bailey took this a step further. “Duty becomes a
disguised form of self-interest,” he wrote, because it is effectively
an
obligation
not to violate a tacit contract between the organization
and its leaders on the one hand, and the official or employee on the
other hand. Fulfilling obligations under this tacit contract brings the
official or employee income, advancement, financial security in
retirement, fellowship, and power.<br>
<br>
One advantage that local government leaders have in the contest for
employees' loyalty is that they have been elected by the people or, in
the case of city and county managers, selected by the principal elected
officials. Bailey wrote, "The city manifests itself to us powerfully as
city
hall — the bureaucracies themselves appear to be a kind of public
good,
something to which selfish and narrow interests must be subordinated in
the
interest of us all.<span> </span>The organization can
then claim to be no more than altruism translated into action."<span><br>
<br>
In other words, if you are an employee considering being disloyal to
the local government, for example by whistleblowing, you think twice
about it, not only to protect your personal interests in the tacit
contract you have, but also because your loyalty to the people of your
community is
loyalty to those they elected. It is the elected officials' job to
interpret what the
public interest is, not other officials and employees. But what do you
do when the public interest isn't even being considered?<br>
<br>
Robert Wechsler<br>
Director of Research-Retired, City Ethics<br>
<br>
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