Cooptation

Cooptation. Ever heard of it? I'm sure you have-just not under that name. It's the concept of the public and private sectors freely sharing responsibilities and employees. It's the former Wall Street CEO becoming the Chairman of the Fed. It's the airline regulator going to work for a major airline company. It's NASA hiring Boeing to manufacture shuttle parts. (Side note-I know the first one is true, the other 2 are examples that are close to life but totally made up and unresearched. If they're true, it's coincidental!)

I've been thinking a lot about cooptation lately (wow! what does that say about me!?!). I really understand the thinking behind it. There are only a limited number of experts in a given field and undoubtedly both the private and public sectors want to utilize them. Sometimes this means the private firm wants to hire away the expert who has thus far worked for the government. Sometimes this means the government wants to use the private sector's expertise to carry out programs for them. There are lots of variations of these situations but I think the the original premise remains the same. However, I also see lots of problems with cooptation-or at least potential problems.

One problem I see is motivation. Everyone has motivation for doing what they do. That motivation could be paying your mortgage or having a million dollar house. It could be fame (or notoriety) or it could be the satisfaction of helping your neighbor. It could be knowing your natural talents are well utilized or expressing something within yourself to others. It could even be increasing awareness of a cause or issue you're passionate about. I find that motivation strongly influences what sector you work in. People in the private sector GENERALLY are motivated by money, fame, greed, just paying the bills or sometimes utilizing their talents. By contrast, people in the public sector GENERALLY are motivated by a desire to help others, advancing a cause, or utilizing their talents for the greater good. This is a gross generalization but it IS perpetuated by the contrast in pay and benefits between the two sectors. You're realistically much more likely to get rich in the private sector so you have a greater need of a deeper motivation to work in the public sector. (Side note: This is a contrast in intrinsic vs extrinsic motivation. Yes, Uncle Sam, your dollars are going to good use...I am learning something in school!) One is not necessarily better than the other. It's just a difference I find significant in this conversation.

If you are intrinsically (greater good) motivated and you decide you want to leave your job as a regulator to work for the people you've been regulating, are you still serving the greater good? Or has your motivation changed? Maybe the regulating job just wasn't paying you enough to pay your bills and the new job can offer more. Maybe you were in the wrong job to begin with. If you are extrinsically (in it for the cash) motivated and you move from a job on Wall Street to a job at the Fed, can you handle the cut in pay or are you suddenly more motivated to help people? I think the danger here is that people who move FROM the private sector to the public sector are still mostly motivated by money and fame-not helping the American people. The people who are wooed from their job in the public sector to work in the private sector were likely in the wrong sector to begin with OR were working there until they could move to private employment (which also might involve the promise of a job later on...thus influencing their public sector job in favor of the private employer they're supposedly policing).

Another issue within this concept I've been thinking about is what someone from the private sector can offer the public sector. I have an odd fascination with both FDR (and Eleanor Roosevelt) and the Kennedy family. Joe Kennedy's (the father of JFK) first influential position was as the first chairman of the SEC. When the stock market crashed, Kennedy was interestingly not effected negatively. He had been a part of the manipulation and calculation which had brought the thing down! FDR purposefully hired an "inside man" to reform the financial system. Who better to understand what is wrong with the system than someone who helped corrupt it? This was perhaps one of the early examples of cooptation and from my understanding something in which FDR was a pioneer. It worked and was a good move. Kennedy got out after a few years and laid some important groundwork. It advanced his public career (which was undoubtedly extrinsically motivated in that he desired to be famous and ultimately, the president...which of course was later fulfilled in his son) as well. But how many of us would be comfortable today with a Wall Street insider running the SEC? Well, it's what we have in many government agencies but we frequently grouse about it. I think the grousing is justified and this example catches my mind because it worked so well but I think it set a dangerous precedent.

What do you think? Is cooptation a dangerous practice or a positive working relationship between public and private sectors?