Agency, Agency Costs and the Nature of Government Part 2

Yesterday I posted here to explain why government actors are not agents of their nation's citizens, at least not as the law understands the concept of agency. After all, we can't, it seems, fire them. However, I also suggested that citizens incur "agency costs" when government actors perform their services. I also suggested that agency costs, at least those caused by information asymmetry, could be reduced by increasing the number of government actors. Hardly the result sought by American conservatives.

But there's another source of agency cost, one that is more congenial to conservative predilections: the danger of self-regarding dealing by the government actor. Rather than acting to benefit a polity's citizens, a government actor may may exercise her discretion to benefit herself. It is the presence of this risk (and the reality of its occurrence), I suspect, that underlay the concerns of the author of "Government? Agents!"

The risk of self-regarding dealing is widely recognized. It is, in Christian theological terms, a consequence of inherited sin. See, e.g., texts such as Psalm 51:5 and Ephesians 2:3. I don't think it's a coincidence that of the many Christian traditions present in the United States there seems to be a correlation between those that emphasize the doctrine of inherited sin and a deep suspicion of the designs of government actors. Check here and here for discussions of the connection between Presbyterians, whose doctrinal statements emphasize the all-corrupting presence of sin, and support for the American war for independence.

Back to the beginning. I also noted yesterday that the Indian student-participants in the seminar on Advanced Comparative Constitutional Law at NLU-Jodhpur had a more sanguine attitude toward their government than have American conservatives toward theirs. Could this difference be traced at least in part to different theological perspectives? Perhaps but I don't wish to jump to an easy--and unverifiable--conclusion. After all, there are many American conservatives who harbor deep suspicion toward their government who aren't Presbyterians or even Christians and many theologically conservative folks in the Presbyterian and Reformed tradition who see governments and its actors as agency for good, not demons incarnate.

Which is why there will need to be another part to get to the bottom of my thoughts on this topic.