A bad Monday for principles
As two of today’s news stories underline, utilitarianism tends to put common sense and the short term ahead of principles and the long term.
This tendency helps explain the apparent hostility to using human rights as a criterion for arbitrating on domestic policy. Arguably, the most important aspect of the idea of rights is that they are absolute: not only should rights be protected in hard cases (cases, which, for example, offend our sense of fairness or common sense) but this is indeed the test of whether a right is really a right rather than merely a contingent entitlement.
This principle has featured recently in debates about prisoners. Most high profile has been the UK Government’s resistance to the imposition by the European Court of a prisoner’s right to vote. In keeping with this position the Government is now seeking largely to remove the right of prisoners to seek compensation as the victims of crime.
The most important question here is not whether victim compensation is a right but whether the state’s scope to remove rights from prisoners should be seen as restricted or open ended. Even the most liberal minded will accept the right of the state to remove those rights which are lost as a direct consequence of incarceration, for example freedom of movement or association; while even the most punitive would not want to deny prisoners the right to basic health care. But should the state be free to add further losses of rights and entitlements which are not a necessary consequence of the loss of liberty?
The UK Government clearly feels the answer is ‘yes’ and no doubt ministers have public opinion on their side, but it is perhaps reasonable to ask where this discretion should end. Given that neither voting nor access to compensation are a necessary consequence of the loss of liberty how about, let’s say, access to nutrition or warmth above the absolute minimum required for survival? After all common sense might argue that many law abiding citizens are cold and hungry; surely it goes against decency that prisoners should be more fortunate? This is indeed the kind of argument which has driven prison policy in some of the more punitive American states.
Another example of the logic of utility was the announcement by the Home Secretary of a new ‘five calls and we’re in’ rule for anti-social behaviour. On common sense grounds it is difficult to argue against the police being compelled to intervene if five different people have reported the same incidents of anti-social behaviour. It has certainly made for some good headlines at a time when rising crime and falling police numbers are making the Coalition vulnerable on law and order.
But Ms May’s announcement does beg some questions. Such targets are bound to generate anomalies: for example, should the police direct resources towards the fifth complaint about children kicking balls over garden fences at the expense of intervening in a case where there have been only three complaints about a vulnerable person being systematically bullied? On other policy areas the Coalition has exposed the danger of these kinds of unintended consequences. Ms May’s apparent abandonment of the principle of localism may now be used when ministerial colleagues in other areas seek to resist calls for national safeguards.
Indeed, with the direct local election of police commissioners taking place in the autumn, policing is often mentioned in the Coalition’s localism script. Whether these elections will attract candidates of calibre and a reasonable turnout remains to be seen, but it is unclear what the value of a local mandate will be if policy can be dictated by Whitehall on an issue as detailed as how many telephone calls trigger action on anti-social behaviour.
Human rights and localism are very different kinds of principles. Both, it seems, are vulnerable to the pressure on all politicians to meet the voracious appetite of public opinion and the 24 news cycle.
Responding to the Myners’ strike
Thanks to Duncan, Steve, Michael and Colin for their advice ahead of my gig last night at the Corporate Governance Circle. I was responding to a forthright speech to the always engaging and direct Lord Myners (who, gratifyingly, had also read the post and comments). I knew less about the subject – ‘Institutional Investors – are they the weakest link’ – than anyone else in the room but I think I just about got away with it.
My key point was to link the debate about corporate governance and stewardship to the emergence in 2012 of Personal Accounts. If these succeed – and the RSA has proposals which we think would help to ensure they do – they will create a huge source of regulated funds with the scope to impact directly on how British business is managed and indirectly on the behaviours of other institutional investors.
Although he expressed it in the most positive of terms, Lord Myners’ basic point was dispiriting for those seeking to improve the quality of corporate governance. He told the assembled investors that they already had the power to influence the companies in which they are invested. In typically robust style, he suggested that if company annual general meetings didn’t exist, someone would now be calling for them as the solution to all our problems: ’Hey, why don’t we have meeting every year where the whole board has to attend and at which shareholders can ask any question they want and table resolutions over key aspects of governance?’ ‘You have the power’ said the Lord ‘but the reality is that you choose not to use it’.
I had gone into the meeting thinking the big difficulty in this policy area was the principal – agent problem but I came to see that it is actually a collective action issue. The diffusion of ownership in almost all large funds – driven by modern portfolio theory – means that typically no fund owns more than one or two percent of a company. Why then should they be the ones to take on the onerous and risky business of holding companies to account? Interestingly, no one in the room denied Lord Myners description of the problem or offered a solution.
This morning David Pitt-Watson (who leads on our Tomorrow’s Investor project) and I met with Tory Work and Pensions spokesperson Theresa May to discuss our project and hear her views on personal accounts. She said some very interesting things to which I will return in a later post. But on the way back to John Adam Street I quizzed David on the issues of investor influence. The RSA proposal is for a low cost pension fund delivered through personal accounts but we also claim this fund could have a benign impact on corporate governance and stewardship, helping for example , deliver George Osborne’s vision (elucidated in a speech yesterday) of a more long term investment culture. ‘But how can we be both cheap and influential?’ I asked.
David assures me he has an answer and that it is in the forthcoming Tomorrow’s Investor report. I am looking forward to reading it
RSA Animate
RSA Mobile
RSA Comment- RSA Projects Blogs
- Twitter @RSAMatthew
- RSAMatthew: On my way to RSA Xmas party - I won't stay too long as it spoils the fun to have the boss around
- RSAMatthew: @DAaronovitch Reading Sennett more like an artistic than a intellectual exercise - best to skip over the bits that don't work for you
- RSAMatthew: @AdamYogaPilates No Bovril but kep warm by indignation at Fulham fans who arrive late, leave early and keep jumping up to get a snack !
RSA Bookshop
The RSA Bookshop, in partnership with Blackwell's the UK's leading academic bookseller, offers Fellows and friends an opportunity to purchase books and to explore our speakers’ ideas in greater detail. Visit the RSA Bookshop.