WINTER 2012 - National Association of Schools of Public Affairs and ...

Moving Forward
their profession, in this case one President Harry Truman (1958) offered after
he left the presidency: “Whenever you have an efficient government you have
a dictatorship.”
To reinforce this point, I would assign Wealth and Democracy (Phillips,
2002). I would use this work to help students recognize the importance of social
class inequalities in modern-day public administration’s origins and therefore
why the public sector must not be judged only according to its efficiency but also
by its social outputs. Phillips shows, for example, how the late 1800s were a time
of incredible socioeconomic disparities, horrific working conditions, appalling
health and sanitation problems, brutal suppression of labor unrest, 2 and
unimaginable governmental corruption. With this history in mind, I would note
that modern-day American public administration had its origins in a time when
private and public reformers were busy trying to offset such pathological side
effects of the capitalism of their era by establishing settlement houses, fighting
the corruption and election fraud of political machines, and working to create
better living conditions for the poor and powerless—all ideals about reducing
inequalities that our field has largely lost sight of.
I would further explore the reasons for this loss and its replacement with
a general conception in the public’s mind of public administration as being
primarily responsible for bringing businesslike efficiency to government. To
reinforce the idea of how other lesser known historical events have both shaped
our field and challenged our democratic ideals, I would use Bureau Men,
Settlement Women (Stivers, 2002). If some students show a special interest in
the history of public administration, indeed in alternative views of America’s
past, I would refer them to Howard Zinn’s People’s History of the United States
(1995) and Michael Parenti’s Democracy for the Few (2011)—works, as their titles
suggest, that offer a more critical interpretation of class relations in America than
most academic texts.
Sixth, to sharpen the focus on the ever-problematic relationship between our
constitutional republic and capitalism, I would assign The Politics of Rich and
Poor (Phillips, 1990). This book is especially effective in showing and explaining
the effects of the dramatic upward redistribution of wealth that occurred during
the Reagan years (and Bush II administration, for that matter) and continues
today, a point the Occupy Wall Street demonstrators are trying to dramatize. In
this light, I would also explore with students why they think our field, in theory
and practice, has shown such little concern with class inequalities—especially, as
Oldfield (2003) has demonstrated, the consequences of socioeconomic origins.
In this context, I would mention how David Stockman, President Ronald
Reagan’s budget director, had a reputation for speaking truth at politically
inconvenient moments. Stockman captured the effects of the growing class
inequalities of his time when he likened supply-side economics to feeding
sparrows by gorging horses with oats (Galbraith, 1982, quoting Stockman).
Journal of Public Affairs Education 101