Acting in the public interest – a framework for analysis - ICAEW

• defend the right to pursue material self-interest without unnecessary restriction, 103including allowing forms of combination through for example corporate forms; 104• defend life, liberty and property 105 including intellectual property rights; 106• protect private interests by uniting to insure, more effectively, life, health, liberty orpossessions; 107• arbitrate in conflicts; 108• enforce minimum standards of, for example competition 109 or professionalism; 110• promote openness to allow individuals to make appropriate decisions; 111 and• promote stability and openness to pluralism, which necessitates a conducive politicalstructure. 112This is not inconsistent with the causes of the historical interventions considered in Chapter 2.However, these are but a part of what people want. One strand of argument as to whatmotivates people has been advanced over a lengthy period of time to be ‘happiness’, albeitwith slightly different use of words:• Aristotle argued that the common interest was an interest in the attainment of a good life. 113• Bentham, over 2,000 years later, observed that people are driven by two masters, painand pleasure. Thus individuals gain utility where something ‘tends to produce benefit,advantage, pleasure, good, or happiness (all this in the present case comes to the samething) or (what comes again to the same thing) to prevent the happening of mischief,pain, evil, or unhappiness’. 114• A much more recent analysis argues along related lines: happiness is the sole goal ofhuman activity ‘because it is our overall motivational device’. What makes us happy is acombination of subjective factors: good family relationships; a sound financial situation;work; a trustworthy community; freedom from chronic pain and mental illness; andpersonal liberty. 115Government policy tends to concentrate on material prosperity and freedom, which fits inwith eighteenth century suggestions that the whole point was the achievement of ‘a great andprosperous society’ 116 . A more recent consideration broadened this out to the ‘realisation ofsocial and political goals of the community at large’ 117 which might mean something different,if society’s goals are other than greatness and prosperity.Indeed, the above analysis suggests this is not what people concentrate upon exclusively.Thus measures of, for example, Gross Domestic Product, do not tell the full story. 118 The issueis complicated by our material wants being relative and our desire for things that matter suchas security, being able to trust, and having good relationships, which are not easy to measure.6.2.1 What matters to peopleThere are a number of models listing around half a dozen or so factors that matter to people interms of determining their happiness.One example suggests the following factors:• family relationships, such as marriage quality and stability;• financial situation;103Wilmott, quoted in The Accountancy Foundation Review Board, Protecting the Public Interest.104Kay, The Truth About Markets.105Partridge, ‘Conscience of a Progressive’.106Kay, The Truth About Markets.107Locke, quoted in Faulhaber, ‘The Rise and Fall of “Self Interest”’.108Faulhaber, ibid.109Wise, ‘Review of Competition Law and Policy in the United Kingdom’.110The Accountancy Foundation Review Board, Protecting the Public Interest.111The Accountancy Foundation Review Board, ibid, Watts and Zimmerman, ‘The Demand for and Supply of Accounting Theories:The Market for Excuses’.112Kay, The Truth About Markets.113Aristotle quoted in The Accountancy Foundation Review Board, Protecting the Public Interest.114Bentham, An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation.115Layard, Happiness – Lessons From a New Science.116Faulhaber, ‘The Rise and Fall of ‘Self Interest’, quoting Smith and Mandeville.117The Accountancy Foundation Review Board, Protecting the Public Interest.118Considered further in Section 7.2.2.The relevant public’s wants39