Public employees in political firms: Part A. The patronage era

Joseph Reid and Michael Kurth

Public Choice, 1988, vol. 59, issue 3, 253-262

Abstract: In part A. The patronage era we explain of the changing organization of public employees from patrons to spoilsmen. (Part B. Civil service and militancy, explains the evolution from spoilsmen to civil servants to militant unionists). Commonly, each transformation has been related only to some failing of its preceding form: patronage ended because of its corruption, civil service began because of its promise to stop corruption, and militancy spread because of the inadequacies of civil service. In contrast to these different explanations of each transformation of government employment, we offer the same explanation for each change: a public choice theory assumption that the new organizational form more efficiently maximized the mixture of votes, power, and income that politicians seek. Thus, when poor immigrants promised votes for insurance from urban hazards and businessmen promised graft in return for accommodations, spoilsmen effected the exchanges. Copyright Kluwer Academic Publishers 1988

Date: 1988
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DOI: 10.1007/BF00118539

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