Comment...

Matthew P. Dumont

Government as Dada The 1971 State of the Union address was remarkable. It epitomized a year in which banks advertised loans with the words "Do It" and department stores held "Flower Power" sales. With revolution emerging as a sure-fire Hollywood movie theme, when everything from ball point pens to Vogue fashions Could be marketed as if ripped off a street barricade, when the great fiscal heart of America throbbed in tune to a Bolshevik chant, then it was not to be unexpected that Richard Nixon would utter something about "power to the people." This was the introduction of a revenue sharing plan wherein the president (in response to a previous article of m i n e published in transaction in October 1970 as "Down the Bureauc r a c y , " which intimated that the federal bureaucracy was not exquisitely tuned to the needs of the people, and having learned that I was now working in a state office building) decided that giving greater financial resources to the states would represent a "second American Revolution." As the ramparts are about to be relocated to state capitals, social change freaks should have a clearer picture of the capacities of state government. I offer as a paradigm for state administration the exhibit of a piece of neoDada sculpture in the garden of the Museum of Modern Art in New York some years ago. After a few false starts, a gigantic apparatus of balloons, shotguns, waterfalls, steam engines, bicycle wheels and assorted other junk allowed itself to be throttled and kicked awake by the sculptor, Yve Tinguly. To the perfunctory applause o f an i n d i f f e r e n t audience, the machine, groaning under the weight of its own cumbersome accoutrements, proceeded fitfully to destroy itself. You must forgive the hyperbole in this image. In actuality, state govern6

ment is not self-destructive. Indeed, one of its most characteristic elements is its durability. The animation and clatter of state administrative 'offices is not, of course, functional. But it is a sign of life. While the world outside grows increasingly like a whole ecology of Don Quixotes tilting at one another, state government itself remains like a windmill, creaking, groaning and useless. Its two hallmarks are a legislature of m a r v e l o u s unaccountability (something over 100 percent of any given population do not know who their state legislators are) and a civil service system of neanderthal consistency. One could hope that something approaching rationality could emerge from this mix of the ether of political patronage and the granite of a prehistoric merit system. In fact, granite and ether do not mix. Instead of a resultant of divergent forces which, like the law of sufficient errors, comes out about right, one has the very worst of all possible ways of allocating tasks. It is not surprising then that the first principle of state government is nothing works. Characteristic of state agencies is a schism between those people having p r o g r a m responsibilities and those with administrative-fiscal ones. A new state program, whether having to do with economic development or mental health or environmental pollution or juvenile delinquency, generally comes into being in response to an ad hoc political issue of concern to the governor or the legislature, or is the pet idea of a hot-shot, reformist professional. In either case, the energy behind the program is rapidly dissipated, particularly if it is not to be manifested in the construction and staffing of new institutions wherein lucrative contracts and the creation of jobs allows for the repayment of debts. Polit-

ical issues become cool in a matter of months and the hot-shot reformist professionals have usually lined up a university job or a few breadand-butter contracts for their new consulting firm before the program has managed to get off the ground. T h e fiscal-administrative agents through whom the program must be mediated have a significantly longer tenure. They generally think in terms of twenty-five or thirty years of state service and their fealty to the state is to a structure of permanence and security. State emblems adorn their tie clasps and cuff links, their language has a dusty, in-house vernacular and they generally share an enthusiasm for the same social pursuits. In short, they represent a subculture with a complete system of artifacts. It is almost incidental that they emerge from a common ethnic and rel i g i o u s background. Their current identities as state employees are more salient and their occupational networks, formal and informal, are as binding as church or ethnic associat i o n s . These networks run across agency and departmental lines and, in fact, extend to the staff assignments of legislative offices and committees. As all middle managers, the administrative-fisca l people are respectful and apparently deferential to the authority and credentials of the program professionals. There is, however, a vague contempt for their naive and ephemeral idealism, when it is present, or a sense o f m o r a l outrage at their cynicism, when not. T h e characteristic passive-aggressivity of middle management can be found in pure culture in state government. It generally emerges in three successive states: a) "It can't be done," b) "It will take some time," and c) "I did just what you said. I can't help it if it didn't come out right." The first stage is, of course, the most primitive. It is timed to emerge, however, so that it can be most effective. In one situation I know of, an important program had been in the planning and developmental stage for eight months. At the very moment that contracts were about to be signed, a key middle manager wrote an opinion that the whole program violated the state constitution. This, as always, was TRANS-ACTION

couched in terms of "protecting" the responsible program professionals. As one wag announced, "With protectors like that, who needs enemas." While the timing of this gambit can be a severe problem, its relative forthrightness allows for a reaction. One has to appeal to a higher authority for a directive, occasionally as high as the governor or the attorney general. One cannot reason or argue with the statement "It can't be done." One can only overrule it. The second phase of passive-aggressivity is less direct but no more subtle. With expressions of dismay and references to being understaffed and overworked, a piece of paper requiring a signature will be found to have been sitting in a desk drawer for three months. This can be expedited if you can find out which desk it is in and then threatening or entreating the manager to sign off on it. In one case, a gift of a bottle of whiskey permitted some figures to be calculated in time to launch an effort to control alcoholism. In an urgent situation, it is necessary to "walk it through," physically to accompany the paper requiring review and comment or signature. The third phase is diabolical and can b e devastating. The "Epaminondas syndrome" has been described in the psychiatric literature as a phenomenon of those patients who manipulate the therapist into telling the patient what to do in a given situation and then following orders in such a way that terrible things turn out. "I did just what you told me" is almost invincible as a mechanism for frustrating purpose and direction in a state agency. State government is heir to still more substantial forces than these subcultural and middle managerial ones. These have to do with the more general issue of the individual in a large and complex system. L e t us assume that a man engages each social system in his personal universe with the same needs for selfesteem and environmental mastery. It is as if a personal pinball machine were projected onto each behavior setting and some kind of reaction of sounds and lights is required from each expression of initiative by the individual. In the most public as well as in the most intimate of interactions we need to feel that the universe, in however small a way, acknowledges and reMAY 1971

sponds to our pressure on it. This seems to be what Western civilization is groping towards, what participatory democracy is about, and what much of the convulsiveness of contemporary life is provoked by. We need to feel important. The larger and more complex the system in which one is embedded, the more difficult it is to achieve that sense of importance. The increase in size distorts the scale of individuality and the complexity of the system makes it difficult for the individual to identify with it. E a c h e n v i r o n m e n t is constantly tested out for the feedback on which our self-esteem relies. We keep pressing the buttons to see if anything happens. In a large and complex system we are grateful for the slightest indication of feedback. In middle managerial circles, this generally comes from expressing a negative rather than a positive influence. If you are part of an elaborate sequence of events, you will not be assured of your existence by assenting to or facilitating that sequence so much as by stopping or delaying it. In short, one is more assured of selfesteem in a large and complex system by saying no than by saying yes. The result is an ecology of nay-saying which prevents any planned outcome from emerging. In some organizations, too conspicuous a nay-sayer can be eliminated, but in state government with the assured tenure of a locked-in merit system or the irrationality of political patronage and with the homeostatic influences of a conservative brotherhood, it is unreasonable to expect any outcome at all, planned or unplanned, of an organizational effort. Ergo, the first principle: nothing works in state government. Now comes the new federalism and revenue sharing couched in anti-big government a n d anti-bureaucracy language as if Richard Nixon were the personification of a hip left-right coalition. Nixon and Agnew are actually Mailer and Breslin in disguise and in order to make "all power to the neighborhoods" palatable to the great American center they are moving in s t u d i e d steps beginning with the strengthening of state government. Well, whether or not you want to indulge that fantasy, the likelihood remains that state agencies may, in the

near future, have more juice with which to lubricate their machinery. Change-oriented professionals anxious to get their hands on certain organs of bureaucratic power to squeeze a few drops of rationality and compassion from them may be attracted to state government. They will find two major strategies available to them. The first is the final repository of old-fashioned liberalism, program budgeting. This represents grateful-forsmall-favor-reformism reincarnated as an effort to rationalize and professionalize the bureaucracy by incorporating long-range planning, operations research, cost-benefit analysis, systems analysis and all the other paraphernalia of the soft-ware hucksters. These efforts may emerge in the form of contracts with former Defense Department lampreys or as offices of program planning which report to the governor. They will not work. The permanent government types are never taken in by the young professionals who exude such charm and firm-voiced competence when they come around to "assist in the flow of information." They know damn well who is being threatened by all those flow charts. Their cooperation (absohately necessary because of the informal c o m m u n i c a t i o n network they embody) is going to have enough curves for a roller coaster. Not only doesn't this strategy work, but it probably shouldn't. Attempting to make state government a more efficient instrument of meeting needs without being concerned with the r e d e f i n i t i o n of those needs is to minister to the marriage of the old liberalism and the new fascism. But that is another story. There is some work to be done at the state level, but it requires a different strategy, one that does not involve making an irrational system rational but which allows for a more creative irrationality. Rather than assuming that a state agency has a potential order and direction waiting to be realized by more sharply defined and purposive efforts, one must assume that it is random behavior paralyzed by too much gravity. What is needed is an increase in the random action, a more fluid Brownian movement or greater entropy. This is to be achieved by broadening the arena of participation in state 7

g o v e r n m e n t so t h a t g r e a t e r n u m b e r s o f p e o p l e w i t h i n and o u t s i d e t h e s y s t e m are capable o f e x e r t i n g their negative influences. What d e v e l o p s is a s y s t e m o f countervailing nay-sayers w h e r e una n t i c i p a t e d o u t c o m e s have a greater chance t o e m e r g e . It is true t h a t w h a t does emerge will n o t have a great deal o f p e r m a n e n c e , b u t it is n o t for the state to d e v e l o p a r r a n g e m e n t s w h i c h should be p o u r e d i n t o c o n c r e t e t o last forever. Every a t t e m p t t o c o n c r e t i z e

an i n s t i t u t i o n o f state g o v e r n m e n t has been catastrophic. The image o n e m u s t keep in m i n d is o f a pool table w i t h o n e p o c k e t a n d several d o z e n balls. Each t i m e a ball is sunk s o m e b u n d l e o f resources conn e c t s w i t h s o m e reservoir o f h u m a n needs. R a t h e r t h a n trying t o be m o r e precise and s y s t e m a t i c a b o u t aiming balls at the p o c k e t , o n e in f a c t heightens t h e likelihood o f sinking one b y i n c r e a s i n g t h e n u m b e r o f players

s h o o t i n g at a greater n u m b e r o f balls at t h e same time in d i f f e r e n t directions. A state p r o g r a m w i t h m o r e balls is a felicitous t h o u g h t .

Matthew P. Dumont is assistant commissioner for drug rebabilitation in tbe Massacbusetts Department o f Mental Healtb and autbor o f The Absurd Healer.

Feedback from Our Readers Advertising the Britannica Dear Editor: In November I received a letter on your stationery, signed by a transaction executive, promoting a special offer of the Encyclopedia Britannica to your readers. It is widely known that transaction is motivated not only by liberal ideals but also by profit and nowhere is the profit motive more transparent than in this promotional letter in which you betray the trust of your subscribers and even worse, encourage them to participate in what, for all you know, may be a deceptive or fraudulent sales scheme. It is one thing to have an open advertising policy and print advertisements that are less than truthful or controversial. Readers have tong since learned not to hold media responsible for the advertisements they print. It is quite another to use your good will and potential influence with your subscribers to aid a company to sell its product. It happens that Britannica, like any other company engaged in door-to-door selling of an expensive product on credit, is highly suspect. It is virtually impossible for such a firm not to engage in high pressure tactics and deception; and as we shall see from the promotional letter, the Britannica is no exception. But whether or not the Britannica is a reputable firm is not the point. The critical issue is that transaction is selling its good name and its subscribers to the Britannica, fails to assure its readers that it has carried out a thorough investigation of the offer and of the product and that both are on the up and up and of the highest quality and therefore deserving of transaction 's endorsement. Once transaction steps over the boundary of accepting advertisements, to promoting a company's offer and product, then it clearly has the obligation to carry out such an investigation and it is obvious from the tone of the letter that transaction did not investigate. Consider the opening paragraph of the transaction letter: Transaction has just completed arrangements with Encyclopedia Britannica which will enable you to obtain the Heirloom Edition at a Discount-a price substantially lower than tbat wbicb is available to any individual. What are the "arrangements" that transaction has completed? How much is transaction to be paid? More importantly, what is the standard price of the Encyclopedia and what is the discount price? Is transaction aware that to advertise "substantial price reductions" without listing the old price and the new price and proving that the goods were indeed sold at the old price is considered to be a deceptive sales practice, one that was declared illegal by the City Council of New York in 19687 Also, what is the Heirloom Edition? How does it differ from other editions? Now let us examine the next paragraph in the transaction letter to its subscribers. One of the wonderful features of the offer is that you not only receive the 24-volume Britannica itself at a reduced price, but you also have your choice of additional Britannica merchandise, free o f extra cost through Britannica's Group Discount Plan. With the Britannica, you can also choose from additional merchandise at no extra cost, including: 8

The letter then describes a 15-volume Junior encyclopedia, a 20-volume set of books about America and a 3-volume set of a dictionary and some atlases, any one of which is available free with the purchase of the Britannica. The next paragraph of the letter describes additional merchandise and services that are available to the buyer, the implication being that these too are free, although the letter does not specifically say they are free, and it may well be that the Britannica buyer would have to pay for these additional services. This ambiguity is not cleared up by transaction's general manager, Mr. Robert D. Meyer, who presumably wrote the letter (but more likely, the letter was written by Britannica and Mr. Meyer only signed it). Finally, let us consider the next to last paragraph of the letter: When you send for your free preview booklet, you will learn how the magnificent (emphasis supplied) new edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica brings to your home a treasure house of knowledge and practical information that will be of great interest and value to everyone in your family . . . . a source of daily help in school, business, home management, hobbies, recreation, and social activities. You will also find how the Britannica can be obtained direct from tbe publisber on a convenient Book a Month Payment Plan. As this paragraph makes clear, transaction need not take a back seat to any Madison Avenue hucksters when it comes to pushing a product. Notice your Mr. Meyer's generous reference to a "magnificent" new edition. Has Mr. Meyer investigated and discovered that all the flaws in the Britannica, including outrageous factual errors, that Mr. Harvey Einbinder documented some years back in his book, The Mytb o f tbe Great E.B. have been eliminated in the new edition? And lest your readers be deceived by Mr. Meyer's euphemism, the "convenient Book a Month Payment Plan" is a reference to a twoyear installment contract. I am not sure whether this phrase is in violation of the federal Consumer Protection Act which prohibits any reference to payment terms in advertisements without full disclosure of all the costs, including the cash price, the time sales price and the interest rate. The FTC has ruled that a reference to "easy payment" terms without full disclosure is a violation of the act, but whether the word "convenient" also requires full disclosure is an open question. As I have tried to show, transaction has been guilty of a flagrant misuse of its name and its subscribers' trust. As one subscriber and in the name of all your subscribers, I demand an apology from you, a full retraction of the offer and full disclosure of both your arrangement with Britannica and the terms of the offer, including the cash price of the Encyclopedia, the discount price, the credit terms and the cost if any of the ancillary services and merchandise. Anything less than this would be to perpetuate your betrayal of your subscribers. David Caplovitz Bureau o f Applied Social Research Columbia University TRANS-ACTION