Coercion and Corruption

A couple years ago I wrote an essay on “coercion” and “corruption” as two basic objections to the commercialization of academic research. It was published in an edited volume. I adopted the distinction between coercion and corruption from a paper by the political theorist Michael Sandel, “What Money Can’t Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets” (Sandel has a book of the same title coming out soon.) Here’s the basic argument, with a few thoughts on how it applies to university politics:

Coercion occurs when economic inequality forces people to buy or sell things they otherwise wouldn’t. Those with more money can shape agendas and outcomes to their advantage. Those with less money may do things out of economic need rather than voluntary choice. That’s one reason most countries ban or regulate payment for sex, surrogate pregnancy, and human body parts, among other things. People who accept money in exchange for these things often do so out of necessity, and in that sense, they are coerced.

Coercion arguments show how collaborations between universities and businesses often create unequal power relations within the university. When some colleges and departments – usually business, engineering, applied sciences – have close ties to major corporations, they easily acquire more influence on campus than others. Other departments may be forced to accept conditions and policies they otherwise wouldn’t. More generally, many public universities today are subject to coercion, because the decline in public funding creates economic pressure to find money elsewhere. Corporations are happy to oblige, usually with subtle or not-so-subtle strings attached.

A key limitation of coercion arguments is that they have little to say when fair bargaining conditions allow people to freely sell things that others think should never be sold. For many people, a regulated market in sexual services or human kidneys — complete with measures to ensure informed consent and equal access  — would still be morally wrong. Or consider scientists with generous public funding, who freely design research projects to maximize their commercial potential (as many increasingly do) — something may still be wrong, despite the absence of coercion. That’s where the corruption argument comes in.

Corruption results from morally or culturally inappropriate exchanges of goods and services. Society can be understood in terms of different spheres of activity – politics, commerce, science, education, art, and so on – and justice depends on provisional boundaries between them. Money is the most common threat to such boundaries, because money can be exchanged for so many things. Most people agree that it’s wrong to buy a baby, sell a term paper, or judge art by its market price. But money is not the only source of inappropriate exchanges: it’s also wrong to trade a baby for a car, or raise a student’s grade in exchange for mowing the lawn.

None of this means that money is evil or that it shouldn’t play a role in education, politics, or art. After all, someone has to pay the bills. University faculty need to be paid an appropriate salary, but their research and teaching should be evaluated according to professional standards, not personal preferences or commercial potential. In this sense, faculty are paid to do research and teaching; they are not paid for research and teaching.

As I wrote before, our campus policy on digital signs includes a ban on commercial messages. Why? It’s probably not because people feel coerced by such messages. A stock ticker that displays corporate logos doesn’t force anyone to buy products or stock from those corporations. And broadcasting corporate recruitment ads doesn’t force anyone to apply for a particular job. But commercial messages corrupt the learning and research environment of the university. They ask people to consider what’s worth buying rather than what’s worth knowing. Universities require a commitment to fair and open inquiry, which is threatened when those in charge seem to be promoting particular economic or political interests.

A key difficulty with corruption arguments is that people don’t always agree on what counts as corruption. Some people think prostitution is fine as long as it’s safe and voluntary, others do not. Some people are bothered by corporate logos on university buildings, others are not.

Coping with such disagreements isn’t easy, because they involve conflicts over the basic meaning and purpose of the activities in question. But that’s why we have institutions and practices of self-government. In universities these include various committees and councils and the faculty senate. They’re never perfect, but we could probably make better use of them.