Self-Policing

Definition

Self-policing is Jane Jacobs's name for the learned professions' responsibility to combat fraud and crime among their own members — distinguished from self-regulation, "which refers mainly to the internal affairs of professional groups" (Jacobs 2004, p. 126). The concept is the book's fifth pillar: "self-policing by the learned professions" (p. 24). Its history descends from "ancient priesthoods, probably the first learned societies," whose conflicts with governments over exemption from civil regulation "echo into modern times" (pp. 125–126). Jacobs's definitional work is twofold. First, the distinction: self-regulation covers fee schedules (architects' percentage fees, with the caveat that "one size does not fit all" for projects of unusual originality), advertising rules, and entrance examinations — "usually more difficult and comprehensive than examinations recruits have already passed at the conclusion of university studies, and I have never heard of corrupt decisions on grades" (p. 128); self-policing "is touchier and more problematic… because it must combat fraud or other outright crimes, and also misbehavior that borders on the criminal" (p. 129). Second, the architecture-specific observation: the profession's self-regulation includes "to ban criticism of another's work, especially criticism that can be heard or read by outsiders" — the reason "one reads few critical reviews by architects of new buildings" (p. 126). Jacobs's own vantage is inside: hired by an architectural journal, she was made to understand that without critical comment the magazine could survive only by publishing "only proposals, buildings, or projects we could unreservedly admire," bowing "obsequiously to fashion (a word we never mentioned; architecture has styles, not fashions)" (p. 127). "Only after an architect was dead and his office had dissolved, or so much time had elapsed that objectivity was deemed feasible, could critical lessons be learned" (p. 127).

The concept's anatomy of failure identifies three transgressions in cover-ups: "First, the actual crime… Second, the cover-up, involving individuals of considerable power or influence who were not involved personally in the initial wrongdoing, but whose sense of loyalty is stronger than their attachment to honesty and openness… Third, the near crime of hoodwinking police with false assurances that all is well" (p. 130). Its central case is accounting: certified public accountants "have been trusted to oversee and guarantee honest financial reporting by business, which is why business at large is trusted. That is the principal function of accountants in civilized societies… When a profession with responsibilities like that goes rotten, it is a cultural and economic nightmare" (pp. 132–133). The Enron/Andersen collapse, the solvency-letter market of the 1980s, and the epidemic of 2002 bankruptcies demonstrate the rot; "plausible denial" — underlings deceiving without informing superiors — is the tactic's name, "a game of nods and winks" (pp. 135–136), and behind it "an already long-standing North American disconnection from reality: the substitution of image for substance" (p. 136). The concept's genuine puzzles are acknowledged: "human capital," "social capital," and "cultural capital" are real assets "difficult or impossible to handle in traditional accounting terms," and the profession is split between pioneering rules and their condemnation — "This is not a matter of good guys versus bad guys; the virtues of both schools of thought are needed" (p. 138).

Key Thinkers

• Jane Jacobs — the concept's theorist: the self-regulation/self-policing distinction; the priesthood genealogy; the three-transgression anatomy; the accounting nightmare (2004).
• Barbara Ley Toffler (not yet paged — see log) — the inside witness: Arthur Andersen's ethics partner on how "the culture of conformity led to disaster" (Final Accounting, 2003, cited p. 212).
• Moses Hadas (not yet paged — see log) — the classical historian whose emperors-and-succession account supplies the book's Roman analogies (cited pp. 181–182).

Related Concepts

• dark-age — the pillar frame: the fifth pillar whose subversion is diagnosed.
• credentialing — the neighboring pillar: professional examinations as the older, uncorrupted gatekeeping that credentialing's university degrees now mirror badly.
• authorship — the wiki's authorship concept; the architects' ban on criticism is a professional-authorship regime in which reputations are managed collectively and critique is deferred past death.
• vicious-spirals — the dynamic: "The collapse of one sustaining cultural institution enfeebles others" (p. 23) — rotten accounting enfeebling trust itself.
• redundancy-of-mentors — the remedy register: professionals "need to be taught right and wrong, and why" (p. 158) — ethics as education, not compliance.

Source Support

Sources in the wiki that discuss this concept:

• Dark Age Ahead (Jacobs 2004) — the definition and distinction (pp. 125–129); the priesthood genealogy (pp. 125–126); the architects' fee schedules and criticism ban, with Jacobs's editorial memoir (pp. 126–128); the three-transgression anatomy (p. 130); police self-protection and civilian review boards (pp. 130–131); business associations' non-priestly descent (p. 131); the accounting nightmare and Enron case (pp. 132–135); plausible denial and the image-for-substitution diagnosis (pp. 135–136); the business-school seminar ("Don't ask, don't tell," pp. 135–136); the genuine accounting puzzles (pp. 136–138); the Dr. Wilson Toronto case of policing delay (p. 210); the "everybody does it" belief and the deeper social contract (p. 211).

Source Support linking rule: All entries in this section must be wikilinks to source note pages in wiki/source-notes/ using the source-notes/ path prefix. Never link to raw files — raw files are not wiki pages.

This page requires fuller treatment — created at the Dark Age Ahead ingest; awaits the professional-ethics and sociology-of-professions literatures, and direct sources on architectural criticism's economy.

Open Questions

• The architects' criticism ban is the concept's disciplinary-specific form — and it touches the wiki's authorship and criticism registers directly. Is the ban a self-regulation (internal affairs) or a failed self-policing (the profession's inability to detect its own frauds, e.g. building-performance failures)? Jacobs leaves the classification open.
• Jacobs notes business associations "are not culturally descended from priesthoods" and thus "lack the expectations of themselves that learned professions assume" (p. 131). Does this genealogical theory of professional obligation predict which professions rot first — and does the accounting case (a profession adopting business tactics) confirm it?
• The concept implies that trust is the economy's infrastructure ("which is why business at large is trusted," p. 132). Is this an institutional-trust theory that connects to the wiki's symbolic-capital and legitimation pages — and if so, what is the spatial form of trust's infrastructure?