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Self-interest detracts from the lustre of the professions

by Simon Longstaff

A quiet revolution is taking place in the way in which society thinks about the place of the professions. Just as more and more groups lay claim to the status of being a profession, so there is a growing tendency to reduce the real significance of that claim. I want to suggest that there is a risk that, by the turn of the century, the significance of the term 'professional' will have been reduced to the status of meaningless window dressing pinned on and stripped off as a matter of simple convenience.

But before I go on, I had better make clear what I mean when I refer to the ‘professions’. Over time, various definitions have been offered. Some concentrate on a particular level of skill or knowledge, others on status – but these days there are many occupational groups that would qualify on both counts without anyone yet thinking of them as being one of the professions. Although definitions vary in detail, they all share one important feature in common. This is that the professions are consistently understood as being made up of people who act in a spirit of public service. That is, professionals are supposed to put the interests of the community before self-interest or that of their professional colleagues.

This is a tall offer – especially in a society that places such emphasis on the mechanism of the market where self-interest is thought to be the driving force. So why bother with being a professional? The traditional answer must be that such a choice has generally led to a combination of status, wealth and power.

But at best, the wealth and power has only ever really been concentrated in the hands of relatively few members of each profession. And in some cases, such as in the ranks of the teaching profession, wealth and power have rarely been part of the package of rewards to be won. Rather, society has agreed to enter into a kind of social compact where it allows professionals certain privileges. These include: the right to carry out certain work forbidden to others, the right to engage in self-regulation and so on. Again, the granting of such privileges is at odds with the basic tenets relating to the operation of the market.

So far, I have merely defined the outline of an ideal understanding of the place of the professions in society. Unfortunately, the reality is frequently found to be somewhat different. Far too often have we seen members of the professions putting self-interest before all others. Far too often have we seen the privileges granted by society used to prevent proper scrutiny of the incompetent or unscrupulous. Far too often has society been left with no alternative but to conclude that its trust has been abused.

No profession is totally free from blame on this account. Without suggesting that this is an exhaustive list, there are medical practitioners who have failed to respect the autonomy of their patients, lawyers who have failed to distinguish between the client's interests and wants and accountants who have operated as 'guns for hire' on the basis that if they don't do the job, then somebody else will. Engineers have sanctioned the application of sub-standard specifications, architects have allowed the public spaces to be polluted and journalists have ignored the truth in favour of a 'good story'. The list could go on.

Such criticism may seem to be too tough. After all, it will be argued, the vast majority of professionals act in good conscience. It will be pointed out that there are always a few 'bad apples' and that it is unfair to blame a whole profession because of the actions of a few individuals. And it will be observed that ethical questions are genuinely complex and that it is rarely a matter of traversing an ethical landscape painted in tones of 'black and white".

Each point is both valid and important. I accept the need for caution lest one fall into the habit of painting gross caricatures. The trouble is that there is a perception in the community that in exercising the privilege of self-regulation, the professions seem to have allowed fairly gross examples of unethical behaviour to pass either without comment or with only a token response.

So, how might one face up to the challenge of calling the professions to account? One response has been to suggest that the professions should surrender all of their privileges and, instead, be treated in exactly the same way as any other service industry. In short, it is proposed that a combination of market forces and normal patterns of regulation be used to control the activities of those who run what will be nothing more than 'businesses' in the law, accountancy, medicine and so on. I accept that this is the extreme version of this point of view. Nevertheless it attracts powerful adherents and finds an institutional expression in some parts of academia and government – especially the Trade Practices Commission.

Although suiting the temper of the times, the trouble with this response is that it risks throwing the baby out with the bathwater. In its admittedly crude form, such a policy is based on the assumption that competition is always good in itself. It leads to the conclusion that more competition is always better than less competition. But surely such an approach is flawed because of its failure to make transparent an even more fundamental question that must be addressed; namely, what kind of social arrangements are of greatest benefit to society? It may be that treating all relationships as transactions and all goods as commodities is the way to go. However, this should not simply be assumed.

Rather, a moment of reflection might suggest that society is far better off if it allows arrangements like the social compact with the professions to remain. Instead of scrapping these arrangements, we might be better off trying to work out ways in which we can hold the professions accountable for delivering their side of the bargain. In other words, let us address the question of what can be done to ensure that the professions act with integrity so that the interests of the community are placed at the forefront of their practical deliberations.

We should, of course, be on our guard to ensure that the professions do not abuse their privileges. For example, the artificial application of 'convenient' ethical standards should not be imposed simply in order to throttle competition. Yet, I cannot imagine that many would object to a profession using its powers of self-regulation to screen out the truly greedy and rapacious. We are all protected by such vigilence.

It must surely be time for a deeper debate about the purpose of the professions in society; a time to call the professions to account and give them an opportunity to re-commit to the social compact. It is also a time for them to make serious suggestions about ways in which the community's trust can justifiably be restored.

The current debate is important not just for the professions but for society as a whole. I personally wouldn't want to bequeath a solution in which a change in policy saw the 'gatekeepers' disappear only to be replaced by posses of guns for hire, prized only for their ability to shoot through loopholes in the law.

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