THE STRENGTH OF THE AGENCY MYTH
The basic issue is the degree of strength and stability of the myth that guides the actions of the commissioner. Popular myths of the viability of altruistic goals serve important functions in guiding the directions of the commissioner's programs and in sustaining the public faith that the commission is moving in the right direction, even when it cannot move very far. The envisioned public goods that form the goals of many commissions are such guiding myths. Hence the concept of public goods is one key to understanding impossible jobs.
P. A. Samuelson defined public goods as those that "are enjoyed in common in the sense that each individual's consumption of a good leads to no subtraction of any other individual's consumption of that good." Public goods must be equally available to everyone. For our purposes, public goods include such widely shared resources as a noninfectious and safe environment, the education of self-reliant citizens, the protection of civil rights by the courts, the security of prisons, the rehabilitation of criminals, and the achievement of self-sufficiency by the poor and disabled-all of which enhance the lives of all citizens. Public goods are distinct from private goods in that private goods are restricted in their distribution to those who have a right to them. Such rights derive from investments in the development of the goods, the purchase of them, or the intensity of needs, as in emergency surgery. In this study, money, jobs, property, medical treatment, information, and recognition are examples of private goods, as distinct from public ones.
Commissioners distribute private as well as public goods. In a very influential work, Mancur Olson argued that public goods are inadequate for marshaling support for collective actions. Olson maintained that because public goods are equally available to all without regard to contribution, the individual would maximize his or her benefits by withholding support from the collectivity, that is, by freeloading. Thus, when all tried to maximize their individual benefits, no collective action could be taken. In order to be viable, such a commission as we are studying must, in Olson's view, provides some private benefits to supplement the disincentives of public goods.
A number of scholars have subjected Olson's theory to empirical test. Generally, their findings oppose Olson. They found that the distribution of private goods is not essential to the viability of collective action and that a commitment to the provision of public goods is commonly necessary for individual support of a collective action as a legitimate effort in the public interest. Private goods may also be supplied as egoistic incentives to support the collective action. Accordingly, commissioners work to provide public goods in order to establish the legitimacy of the prime public mission. Simultaneously, they work to provide private goods as incentives to cooperation.
One of the commissioner's guides to effective public service is the myth that the commissioner makes public goods equally available to all. There is always a gap between the myth and reality, but that gap is trivial if the myth is strong and very important if the myth is weak.
A strong myth develops when the public good is equally accessible but access requires some effort, as in universal public education, a healthful environment, or a stable food supply. A strong myth also develops when the recipients of public goods are responsible and tractable, especially when they are persons who have already exerted great efforts or been subject to great risks in the public interest, such as veterans subject to the perils of combat or farmers facing droughts and floods.
Because efforts at self-help, sometimes extraordinary efforts, are demanded as the equity invested for the benefits received, the public perceives that both the self-help ethic and the equity norm of justice are being realized. As a result, the myth is consensual and stable rather than controversial and unstable. The inevitable gap between myth and reality is blamed on lack of client effort and not the negligence or incompetence of the commissioner. Therefore, a strong myth sustains policy continuity.
A weak myth develops when the public good is accessible with little or no individual effort and indeed is sometimes "delivered" by outreach to those who make no effort at all, as in welfare and preventive public health. A weak myth also develops when the recipients are irresponsible and intractable and have exerted no special efforts or made any sacrifices in the public interest. Thus both the self-help ethic and the equity norm of justice are violated. The myth and consequently the efforts of the commissioner are controversial, unstable, and subject to sudden swings of public opinion. The inevitable gap between the myth and reality is attributed to both the ill-advised actions of the commissioner and the irresponsible lack of effort by the recipients. The myth does not sustain policy continuity. Weak myths do stir the public's hope, but the hope wavers and shifts to despair very quickly.
The public goods ostensibly provided in possible jobs are generally perceived to create widely shared benefits. The politics and policy of scientific research, national defense, public works, and public education are "distributive" rather than "redistributive." Of course, resources are still preferentially allocated in distributive policy and possible jobs, but the common perception is that all benefit. On the other hand, the public goods ostensibly provided in impossible jobs are commonly regarded as redistributive, i.e., robbing Peter to pay Paul. Redistributive politics and policy are much more controversial in the American polity than are distributive. And redistributive programs are more difficult to administer either because the eligibility to receive benefits is subject to very complicated and arbitrary means tests or because the clients are segregated as unworthy by some other judgments.
Commissioners also distribute egoistic private goods to those who have a right to them because they earned the goods by contributions to the commission. Such goods provide incentives for staff, suppliers, and citizens to contribute to the work of the commission and are important supplements to the legitimating public goods.
In summary, commissioners in impossible jobs find themselves guided by weak myths that they are contributing to the very long-term development of such idealistic public goods as a healthy, self-sufficient, responsible citizenry. They also find themselves faced with the fact that, as a short-term means to that end, they are administering a law that takes private goods from some responsible citizens and redistributes them to some free-loaders. As public attention shifts from the long-term ideals to the short-term redistribution and back again, the commissioner becomes vulnerable to sacrifice on the altar of a public disillusion not created by him or her.
