Civil service reform, at-will employment, and George Santayana: are we condemned to repeat the past?

"There is much forgetfulness, much callow disrespect for what is past or alien; but there is a fund of vigour, goodness, and hope such as no nation ever possessed before. In what sometimes looks like American greediness and jostling for the front place, all is love of achievement, nothing is unkindness ..."

--George Santayana (1)

A constant tension exists between efficiency and effectiveness in American public administration--a tension that quickly becomes evident in determining exactly how to achieve efficiency and what constitutes effectiveness. (2) This is reflected in today's civil service reform controversies in state and federal government as antagonists juxtapose the competing values of business management and public service. (3) The debate is often not joined as positions become entrenched and sheer political power prevails. (4)

In such situations, insights from another time and place can provide a perspective on issues and events. A case in point is philosopher and poet George Santayana (1863-1952) who lived in the United States during an era when the patronage-based spoils system gradually gave way to the merit-based civil service of today. A Spanish immigrant, he subsequently studied and taught at Harvard University during his 40 years here, and departed, never to return, in 1912. Santayana, nonetheless, retained a fascination for, and outlook on, American politics and culture. (5)

Santayana is perhaps best known in the community of philosophers for his five volume series, The Life of Reason, published from 1905-1906. A prolific and engagingly lyrical writer, the topics of his books, poems, letters, and essays ranged from art to religion to social commentary. Considered by many to be an American philosopher, Jorge Augustin Nicolas Ruiz de Santayana never relinquished his Spanish citizenship. Thus, he maintained the perspective of an outside observer of the American culture that he lived in for so long.

His often contrarian--but not mean-spirited--writings saw no need to impute sinister motives to people, for there was, as he said, a "fund of vigour, goodness, and hope" in America. (6) Such an outlook provides an apt lens to assess the current debates. This critique of radical reform examines how private sector employment techniques are used as part of an effort to corporatize government. The background section below briefly reviews the origins of the merit system and the objectives of the new changes. This is followed by a case study of an initiative in the "megastate" of Florida. The conclusion speculates on the future of civil service reform.

Background

"The word experience is like a shrapnel shell, and bursts into a thousand meanings."

--George Santayana (7)

Modern civil service systems in the United States sprang from the "good government" movement that emerged in the post-Civil War period. Degradation of government, both economic and ethical, by the spoils system was the signal issue of the time. Experience had shown that it was little more than politically-driven "at-will" employment, a doctrine that holds employees can be hired and fired for any or no reason not contrary to law (see Table 1). Given increasing population and industrialization, a large nation could not be effectively governed with such an arbitrary--and scandal-ridden--personnel system. To protect the commonweal from unscrupulous politicians, responsible government administration would have to be businesslike--organized by administrative principles, lead by a strong executive, and staffed with non-partisan employees. "[T]he field of administration is a field of business," said Woodrow Wilson, a prominent reformer and founder of modern public administration. (8) To ensure against partisan manipulation and opportunism, reformers believed that public servants needed job security; clean and efficient public service would result when political partisanship was replaced with merit qualification in personnel decisions. Competence would be the foundation of moral public management. (9) The virtue of this view would soon become evident.

If the experience of Santayana's times burst into "a thousand meanings"--showing both the worst (spoils) and the best model (business) for government service--it crystallized into the Pendleton Act of 1883 with the assassination of President James Garfield by a disappointed office-seeker. The contemporary civil service movement also gleaned experience from the public and private sector. This time, however, two things were different: there was no spectacular catalyst for reform that distilled experience, and employment at-will was embraced instead of rejected. General distain for government and the allure of the "New Economy" of the 1990s made at-will employment the centerpiece of reform, beginning in mid-decade in Georgia (and subsequently Florida) and in selected federal agencies (most notably, the Transportation Security Administration). And in late 2003, the Department of Defense won approval to remove its civilian employees (which constitute one-third of the federal workforce) from the traditional civil service, (14) joining the Federal Aviation Administration, the Department of Homeland Security, and the Internal Revenue Service. The Securities and Exchange Commission, NASA, the Department of Veterans Affairs, and the Government Accountability Office are also seeking freedom from civil service rules. The seduction of the business model was also demonstrated in Florida where a bill to eliminate job security for over 300 Division of Blind Services employees jeopardized $38 million of federal funding (Lauer, 2003). (15)

If change initiatives are to benefit the citizenry, then they must be examined carefully; government works best when policy makers debate their opponents, refine their ideas, and thereby earn support and legitimacy for them. The more that assertion is used instead of analysis, the more the public is split along partisan lines; citizens are inflamed, not informed. Indeed, Santayana observed that "Fashion is something barbarous, for it produces innovation without reason and imitation without benefit." (16) What is so notably missing in contemporary reform debates is what was so evident in the halcyon times of the late 1800s: an acknowledgment of the ethical context of the merit system that underlies sound government--decision-making untainted by motives such as crass partisanship or political favoritism. Dennis Thompson points out the central, if paradoxical, role of ethics in policymaking: "Because other issues are more important than ethics, ethics is more important than any issue." (17) Stated differently, ethics is, as Adam Smith knew well, the precondition for not only for economic markets, but also good government.

Yet this understanding has been submerged in recent years by the cult of the market, hyper-individualism, rejection of government institutions, and unquestioned acceptance of "the business model" for American governance--a remarkable set of beliefs that survives in an era of massive corporate corruption and the war on terrorism. (18) Civil service reform, in the name of flexibility and discretion, frees managers from personnel rules and procedures, erodes employee rights, and diminishes the idea of a higher purpose embodied in a public service career. Government employment becomes just another self-interested enterprise, its employees reduced to disposable commodities. The integrity of government provided by due process protections from special interests, the cornerstone of the merit system, is thereby put at risk.

This shift of the role of public service from moral guardian to commercial surrogate sees markets as the solution to social problems; since there is a market-based economy there should be a market-based society. In a means-end reversal, society exists to serve the economy, not the economy to serve society. It is difficult to believe that this focus will ultimately serve the greater good. Today's civil service reform, no matter how well meaning, cannot help but lead to partisan allegiance, political opportunism, and personal connections instead of technical competence, social equity, and responsibility in public service. There is little appreciation of the fundamental distinction between organizations designed to make profits and those dedicated to serving others. To fail to grasp this difference places the reformers, like the certified public accountants entangled in recent corporate scandals, in the position of not understanding what it means to serve the public interest. (19)

In fact, the Constitution, Article II, section 2, refers to officers--not employees--of government. Public service is more than simply an application of business economics; indeed, it is not a proper place for those who see their role in simply instrumental terms. Career officials carry a heavy normative burden, one requiring special methods of selection, utilization, and protection that permits them to pursue their craft skillfully and honorably. So conceived, the exercise of public office is what Cicero saw as "civic wisdom;" it is for good reason that this noble art is called "public service." Since elected officials and their appointees are necessarily driven by political exigencies, careerists may be the only group for which good management is the preeminent value--the underlying assumption of Wilson's belief that government should emulate business as a professional endeavor. In sum, with the goal to "run government like a business," experience taught reformers of yesteryear to keep the spoilsmen out while those of today, using the same justification, invite them in as shown by the case study below.

Employment At-Will in Florida