Knowledge And Decisions

That intellectuals tend to conceive of accountability solely in terms of their own processes of articulated rationality says more about the myopia or egocentricity of intellectuals than about the functioning of social processes. A businessman whose whole economic future is staked on the correctness of his assessments of consumer desires or technological possibilities is regarded by intellectuals as unaccountable, because he does not articulate to anyone. Conversely, psychiatrists, psychologists and social workers whose articulated assessments lead to dangerous criminals being turned loose are not accused of being unaccountable, even though they suffer no penalties for the robberies, assaults, or murders committed by those released — not even the embarrassment of having a personal box score kept on the criminals released on their recommendations.

Many of the same intellectuals who depict business as unaccountable to the public also deplore such things as television ratings and the proliferation of product models differing by nuances (automobiles, telephones, airline passenger sections) — all representing attempts to cater to public taste(s). Intellectuals’ conceptions of making business accountable almost invariably involve making more articulation necessary — at stockholders’ meetings, before government agencies, or public disclosures about internal business processes. Unarticulated accountability by results — product characteristics and prices — is either ignored or arbitrarily subordinated to articulation about processes, despite the fact that (almost by definition) a lay public is more likely to be able to judge tangible end results than to monitor complex specialized processes. Often proposals for accountability in the name of the public mean in practice articulation to intellectuals placed on corporate boards by government (or under threat of government action) as “public” representatives. Here the self-interest of intellectuals is even more apparent, and the claim of responsiveness to the desires of the general public even more questionable.

Nowhere is the meaning of “public” representation better illustrated than in so-called “public” television, where the tastes actually served are not those of the public but of atypical elites, favoring sports (soccer, tennis) different from those preferred by the public (baseball, football), favoring British soap operas (“Poldark,” “Upstairs, Downstairs”) rather than American, and rescuing performers who lost out in public popularity (Dick Cavett) compared to their competitors (Johnny Carson), but who happen to be favored by intellectuals. The issue here is not about the artistic merits of these various entertainment productions, but about what “public” accountability means in practice, when conceived of as articulation rather than alternative processes for conveying public preferences.

Sometimes the supposed lack of “accountability” of corporate management is vis-a-vis stockholders, rather than the general public. The “separation of ownership and control” has long been regarded as a social “problem” to be “solved” — almost invariably by more articulation and/or political control. The possibility that such separation may be desired by stockholders themselves is ignored. Yet many stockholders have sufficient investments to form their own business and manage it — if they wanted to. Their preference for having someone else carry out the managerial functions is revealed by their purchase of stock. As stockholders, they monitor end-results — dividends — rather than attempt to monitor managerial processes. To allow other stockholders or “public” representatives to monitor managerial processes would be to deprive stockholders in general of the option of choosing to whom to entrust their investments. Those stockholders who might prefer being involved in management can of course hold stock in such corporations as choose to attract them by offering such terms, if such arrangements are sufficiently viable to allow such corporations to compete and survive.