Should powerful people be treated differently? Should they get special treatment? Should their bad behavior be more easily excused? It seems to me that there are two arguments to consider:
1. Decisions made by powerful people are more consequential for all of us.
2. Societies operate more effectively if there is an egalitarian sense of solidarity.
With the first argument, one might want to excuse occasional bad behavior, as there could be a great cost to replacing a powerful person with someone less skilled. Here you might think of the famous case of General Patton slapping a soldier suffering from shell shock, or General McArthur’s attempt to undercut Truman’s authority in Korea. Neither is a perfect example of this dilemma, but in both cases these two issues come into play to some extent.
Another example is presidential scandals. I’ve seen several examples in my lifetime that would have led to the individual being fired from his job if he were less powerful. This sense of the leader being above the law is of course much more pronounced in less developed countries, or in pre-modern times in the West.
One can also find some evidence of the solidarity principle at work. US presidents earn a salary of $400,000. While that is well above a middle class salary, it’s still a sum that average people can visualize–perhaps they know a doctor or lawyer with that income–unlike the eight figure salaries of top corporate executives. This may be society’s way of making the president seem less special.
On the other hand, the US president receives a “total compensation” that is arguably the highest on Earth. He lives in the best house, has the best transport, the best bodyguards, the most deferential servants, dinner parties with the most distinguished guests, etc. Even Jeff Bezos can’t easily replicate that consumption bundle.
At first glance, it might seem like the utilitarian position would be to provide special treatment to the powerful, as their decisions are so consequential. In fact, all good arguments are utilitarian arguments. Countries with a high degree of social cohesion and solidarity tend to do better in terms of governance. A place like Denmark is less likely to offer special treatment to its leaders than the Congo or Syria, and more likely to be better governed. That fact is also of relevance to utilitarians.
I suspect there are no hard and fast rules here, which apply in every single case. As a general principle, there are some clear social benefits to creating a society where each person is viewed as having equal value, and no one is exempt from the rules. On the other hand, there may be individual cases where applying this principle strictly means that society is shooting itself in the foot.
It’s sort of like torture. Have a general rule against torture, but if there’s a ticking nuclear bomb in NYC . . .
READER COMMENTS
Everett
Oct 3 2020 at 8:21pm
This is all of a spectrum, and it is important to look at the few at the top of this spectrum. But I feel in aggregate it is even more important to look at the “special treatment” reserved for those at the bottom of the pile. The hoi polloi not of the upper middle class, or even the secure middle class, but of the precariat.
Juan Manuel Pérez Porrúa Pérez
Oct 4 2020 at 2:24am
https://www.mountvernon.org/library/digitalhistory/digital-encyclopedia/article/levees-receptions/
During the Washington and Adams administrations, there was a ceremonial around the president that resembled — in a small scale — the one surrounding 18th century European royalty. When Jefferson took over, he was staying in D.C. at the recently finished President’s House, and the informality with which he received his guests in comparison offended the British minister very much. I don’t know if that hurt the US’ unstable relationship with Britain at the time, but given that in a few years the US and Britain would be at war, it’s something to consider.
Robert Schadler
Oct 4 2020 at 12:38pm
Two comments on just two sentences:
” In fact, all good arguments are utilitarian arguments. Countries with a high degree of social cohesion and solidarity tend to do better in terms of governance. ”
The first sentence seems tautological. An argument can’t be “good” if it isn’t utilitarian.
How do libertarians frame a judgment whether there is “a high degree of social cohesion and solidarity” and, more importantly, whether cohesion or diversity is to be valued more than the other. “Solidarity” in a marketplace might mean everyone wants to buy or sell that same thing. That suggests a bubble or a panic. It does not speak to whether or not those views might be right or wrong. Political correctness is an effort at “social cohesion.” It seems a classical liberal might venture the political view that there should be “solidarity” in support of “rule of law” and “property rights” and unregulated markets, but not much more.
Scott Sumner
Oct 4 2020 at 2:01pm
There are a number of studies that look at what’s often called “civic virtue”. They ask poll questions like “Is it acceptable to take government benefits to which you are not entitled. The Danes are the most likely to say “no”.
That’s the sort of thing I had in mind.
Mark Z
Oct 4 2020 at 9:52pm
That seems more like conscientiousness than solidarity. Could be hair-splitting but I don’t think so.
Scott Sumner
Oct 5 2020 at 1:49pm
By “solidarity” I mean putting a lot of weight on the well being of our fellow citizens.
Thomas Hutcheson
Oct 4 2020 at 12:54pm
Apparently the IRS spends a disproportionate amount of effort on collecting taxes from lower-income taxpayers; that’s clearly favoritism.
nobody.really
Oct 6 2020 at 9:36pm
I understand that the IRS pursues a disproportionate share of enforcement actions against relatively poor taxpayers. But that’s not the same as saying that they spend a disproportionate effort in that pursuit.
What should guide the IRS’s enforcement decisions? Here’s one possibility: Maximize net revenues. What would be the result of such a strategy?
Relatively poor taxpayers earn the bulk of their revenues via paychecks, which makes detecting and proving underpayment fairly easy. Rich people often own their own businesses or have other complicated financial arrangements that make detecting and enforcing the tax laws expensive.
Relatively poor taxpayers have fewer resources to fight against the IRS. The IRS can secure a great deal of compliance merely by sending a form letter. Rich people pay experts to create complicated arrangements to make enforcement complicated, and litigate everything; form letters just don’t do the trick.
Finally, all else being equal, we might expect to find more enforcement actions against poor people than rich people–simply because there are more poor people than rich people in the population.
In short, even if the IRS implements most of its enforcement actions against the relatively poor, I lack sufficient information to condemn the practice.
Phil H
Oct 4 2020 at 10:19pm
I think you could think about it this way. At the moment there are two kinds of mitigation for crimes. Taking the canonical crime of murder as an example, there are two lesser crimes: manslaughter and attempted murder (terminology varies from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, but I think these terms are well-known enough to carry my meaning). Manslaughter is a lesser crime than murder for deontological reasons: though the consequences were the same, the criminal’s (mental) conduct differed. Attempted murder is a lesser crime than murder for consequentialist reasons: though the criminal’s conduct was the same, the consequences differed. Both of these different ways of classifying crimes exist simultaneously in our current system because life is complicated.
Now, the way markets assign rewards is purely consequential. If product X sells, then you make money; if it doesn’t, you don’t. It would seem to be at least consistent for those who believe in the efficacy of markets to also believe in the efficacy of consequentialist approaches to punishment.
The implications for powerful people are pretty stark: Powerful people take decisions that affect more people. If even one of the people affected is killed, the powerful person should be punished accordingly. Life for the powerful would become much more risky. I don’t know if that would be a good or a bad thing, but it seems like the natural extension of a market philosophy.
Scott Sumner
Oct 5 2020 at 1:48pm
You said:
“The implications for powerful people are pretty stark: Powerful people take decisions that affect more people. If even one of the people affected is killed, the powerful person should be punished accordingly. Life for the powerful would become much more risky. I don’t know if that would be a good or a bad thing, but it seems like the natural extension of a market philosophy.”
I’m not quite sure what you mean by ‘market philosophy’. If you mean utilitarianism, then I agree that this is the appropriate criterion for punishment. But as you correctly note, we don’t know whether a particular punishment regime would be “good or bad”, and thus we don’t know what sort of punishment regime is appropriate from a utilitarian perspective.
Regarding manslaughter, you can argue that we want stronger sanctions for behavior that is almost certain to result in death, as opposed to behavior (like fist fights) with a low probability of resulting in death. I’m not saying that’s correct (there are good arguments both ways), but I could see a consequentialist at least making that argument from a “deterrence” perspective.
Mark Z
Oct 5 2020 at 2:13pm
Regarding your last paragraph, if we punish people purely according to outcome, then shouldn’t the deterrence effect be proportional to the probability of causing death? If some type of behavior causes someone to die 99% of the time, then 99% of people who do it will be punished for murder, whereas if it only causes death 0.1% of the time, only 0.1% of people will be punished for murder. A rational citizen will thus assess his behavior according to the probability of it causing death, which is what we want. At least inasmuch as people are rational, it seems like taking intentionality into account may not be optimal.
We also probably don’t want to end up like the late Roman republic, where every consul gets prosecuted and exiled by the next consul, which creates pretty bad incentives for heads of state (as the Romans found out), so there may be good rule-consequentialist reasons for making it harder to punish a head of state for the consequences of his actions than other people (not for making them exempt from the law, but just not making it unlawful for them to do things that may cause harm, since it’s probably impossible for a head of state to not cause a lot more harm than ordinary people).
Phil H
Oct 6 2020 at 12:27am
Thanks, both.
I’d be a little worried about a probability-based approach to punishment because of the problem of the population. If a fist-fight only causes serious hurt to 1% of people who engage in them, and a gunfight causes serious hurt 90% of the time, we could impose 90x harsher sentences on those who gunfight. But the problem is that the vast majority of fistfights go under the radar. Because no one gets hurt, the police don’t get called, and no punishment follows. The justice system is never going to be dealing with the true total population of all fistfighters. So any probability calculation that works off that will introduce some weird skew into the system.
Mark – the Roman consul thing. Yeah, on two levels: (1) there’s a fairness problem: if you literally can’t do a job without it causing harm; and yet you must be punished for that harm, then that seems to be unfair to the holders of high office; and (2) practically, as you said, that system would set up horrible incentives.
Which is why I still favour something more like the current mixed system. What I meant to suggest was that if you believe in the power of markets to maximize rewards over the population, wouldn’t it be consistent to believe in a market-style approach to punishments to minimize punishments, i.e. to minimize crime?
eric mcfadden
Oct 5 2020 at 3:54am
Cosby is in jail until he will die because he gave a allergy pill to a woman who knew what was going on and then she had voluntary sex with him. Clinton was the boss of a government office and he slept with the unpaid intern. A bank manager would have been fired for the same thing if it was in his office. Being powerful is just different, and a lot of random.
Scott Sumner
Oct 5 2020 at 1:39pm
If your facts are correct then I doubt Crosby would have been given that sentence. Having said that, it’s true that powerful people might be treated worse in a few cases.
Anders
Oct 9 2020 at 12:00pm
Quaaludes are sedatives that work on GABA receptors, similar to barbiturates – so calling it an allergy medication is silly.
From what I read of the case, however, it would be hard to argue that the sentence had been this harsh without the immense social and political pressure of metoo (although sexual assault has, contrary to many claims, always been considered particularly egregious to levels at times exceeding murder, the imperative to believe, or err on the side of, accusers was arguably stronger than before).
It is hard to see, however, that the case was much stronger than the allegation against Biden – what saved him was the damage the accusation would wreak on the prospects of ousting Trump.
So yes – the system is indeed arbitrary, especially around crimes as politicised and sensitive as this. Overall, however, and historically, chances of acquittal correlate strongly with socio-economic status: of the hundreds of cases where the Innoncence Project managed to get sexual assault convictions overturned, most came from the lower classes (and half were African-American).
RPLong
Oct 5 2020 at 11:57am
I was surprised in reading this that you left off one other possibility: The powerful should be held to especially high standards. Yes, they should get special treatment. They should be punished more harshly for wrongdoing. They should be tied to stricter rules. They should have to jump through more hoops than other people. Every rule and punishment faced by a regular person should be many times greater for those who seek and retain political power.
Scott Sumner
Oct 5 2020 at 1:41pm
That’s actually my view, in some respects. I believe that we should demand a higher standard of honesty in top officials than in average people. There are 330,000,000 people in America; we should ask that our leaders be above average in integrity, not just average.
nobody.really
Oct 6 2020 at 9:14pm
John Emerich Edward Dalberg, Lord Acton, Letter to Bishop Mandell Creighton, April 5, 1887 published in Historical Essays and Studies, edited by J. N. Figgis and R. V. Laurence (London: Macmillan, 1907)
Pierre Lemieux
Oct 7 2020 at 10:11pm
Scott: You write:
That reminds me of Émile Faguet criticizing the organicist or anthropomorphic conception of society (I quote from memory):
Pava Renat
Oct 19 2020 at 1:40am
Scott, what’s your objective function? Retribution or deterrence? If it’s retribution, treat everyone alike — a sin is a sin, and the let the punishment fit the crime, not the person. But if it’s deterrence, you can be a little more circumspect. I think the optimal rule then would be to fit the punishment to the perp, and make the rule perfectly transparent, viz. that you will punish so that it hurts in proportion to the perp’s subjective sensitivity and vulnerability. In principle, the marginal cost to the perp of the punishment should equal the marginal gain in deterrence for future perps. And you need to consider also the marginal cost to the present public good from punishing the perp. So if President C commits a vile act with a consenting intern in the White House, what’s the appropriate punishment? There was no crime, only a violation of public and political mores, for which we have a political process to mete out the punishment. And it was tailored to fit the perp, with huge political considerations injected. The punishment was really just a public shaming, perfectly designed to create both specific and general deterrence. It set a precedent only insofar as it demonstrated that lewd acts will be shamed, and that’s deterrence enough. And I think that’s a good model.
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