Managing Conflict of Interest - Organisation for Economic Co ...

24 Managing Conflict of Interestofficials very often come from the private business sector, and returnto it when they have completed their term of office. The rotation ofpeople from the private sector into and out of government is high.Big business is a major funder of election campaigns. “The pursuitof the moneyed life,” wrote the sociologist C. Wright Mills, “is thecommanding value, in relation to which the influence of other valueshas declined, so men easily become morally ruthless in the pursuitof money.” 13 In this cultural climate, politicians and officials may beall the more susceptible to accepting favors, and private individualsor organizations to offering them.In the nation’s early years, the ideals and altruism of the FoundingFathers ensured that those appointed to public position werecompetent and honest. One historian has written that “during theformative years of the American national government its public servicewas one of the most competent in the world. Certainly it wasone of the freest from corruption.” 14This soon changed. Standards in public life declined as thegentlemen and intellectual political leaders of the revolutionaryperiod were replaced by self-interested politicians. The partisanuse of patronage became standard practice and access to publicoffice became dependent not on a man’s competence andintegrity but on his political connections. Contrary to the premisethat democracy favors good governance, in the US case in the19th century the spread of democracy seems to have had theopposite effect. When a reforming minority proposed reforms inthe civil service so that appointments would be made by competitiveexamination, these were routinely opposed as being elitistand antidemocratic. 15Civil service reform at the federal level was eventually enactedin 1883, but this did not affect the politicians. The railroad boom,the concentration of economic power in the “robber barons,” thedominance of self-interested party bosses, and other factors led13Mills, C. Wright. 1952. A Diagnosis of Our Moral Uneasiness. New York TimesMagazine. Reprinted in Power, Politics and People. New York: BallantineBooks.14Van Riper, Paul. 1958. History of the United States Civil Service. Evanston,Illinois.15Hofstadter, Richard. 1963. Anti-intellectualism in American Life. VintageBooks.ADB/OECD Anti-Corruption Initiative for Asia and the Pacific