Republic, Lost_ How Money Corrupts Congress--And a Plan to Stop It - Lawrence Lessig [7]
In this simple example, we have all the elements of the kind of corruption I am concerned with here. The institution of medical education has a fairly clear purpose—Harvard’s is to “create and nurture a diverse community of the best people committed to leadership in alleviating human suffering caused by disease.” That purpose requires doctors to make judgments objectively, meaning based upon, or dependent upon, the best available science about the benefits and costs of various treatments. If a doctor within that institution compromises that objectivity by weighing more heavily, or less critically, the treatments from one company over another, we can say that her behavior would tend to corrupt the institution of education—her dependency upon the drug company has led her to be less objective in her judgment about alternatives.
Of course, we can’t simply assume that money for speaking would bias the doctor’s judgment. There is plenty of research to show why it could, but so far that research is an argument, not proof.4 It is at least possible that such an arrangement leaves the judgment of the scientist unaffected. Although, again, my own reading of the evidence suggests that’s unlikely. But my point just now is not to prove the effect of money. It is instead to clarify one conception of corruption.5 It is perfectly accurate to say that if the relationship between the doctor and the drug company affected the objectivity of the doctor, then the relationship “corrupted” the doctor and her institution.
In saying this, however, we need not be saying that the doctor is an evil or bad person. If our doctor has sinned, her sin is ordinary, understandable. And indeed, among doctors in her position, her “sin” is likely not even viewed as a sin. The freedom or latitude to supplement one’s income is an obvious good. To anyone with kids, or a mortgage, it feels like a necessity. We can all, if we’re honest, imagine ourselves in her position precisely. Ordinary and decent people engage all the time in just this sort of compromise. It is the stuff of modern life, to be managed, not condemned, because if condemned, ignored.
We manage this sort of corruption by, first, recognizing its elements and, second, evaluating explicitly whether the institution can afford the compromise it produces. We recognize its elements by being explicit about the range of influences that operate upon individuals within that institution—particular influences within, we could say, an economy of influence. Some of those influences may be too random to regulate. Some may be the sort that any mature understanding of human nature would say produced a dependency.
Where there is such a dependency, those responsible for the effectiveness of the institution must ask whether that dependency too severely weakens the independence of the institution. If they don’t ask this question, then they betray the institution they serve.
By invoking this idea of dependency, I mean to evoke a congeries of ideas: a dependency develops over time; it sets a pattern of interaction that builds upon itself; it develops a resistance to breaking that pattern; it feeds a need that some find easier to resist than others; satisfying that need creates its own reward; that reward makes giving up the dependency difficult; for some, it makes it impossible.
We all understand how these ideas map onto Yeltsin’s struggle. Few of us have not been harmed by, or not done harm as, an alcoholic. We get this dynamic. We have lived with it.
How these ideas map onto an institution, however, is something we need still to work out. Institutions are not spirits. They don’t act except through individuals. Yet each of these ideas is at least understandable when we think of an institution in which