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Private Government, Property, and Professionalism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 November 2009

Carolyn J. Tuohy
Carolyn J. Tuohy
Affiliation:
University of Toronto
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Extract

For over a decade, a major theme in the literature of social science has been the recognition of the increasing importance of specialized knowledge as a basis of power and wealth in modern societies. A fundamental question for political science hence becomes: how can we best understand the nature of the institutions which govern the acquisition and the application of specialized knowledge? What conceptual tools allow us to analyse the functioning of these institutions at present and to predict their future evolution?

Type
Notes
Information
Canadian Journal of Political Science/Revue canadienne de science politique , Volume 9 , Issue 4 , December 1976 , pp. 668 - 681
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Political Science Association (l'Association canadienne de science politique) and/et la Société québécoise de science politique 1976

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References

1 For a discussion of the arguments made in the pursuit of professional status, see, for example, Cogan, Morris, “The Problem of Defining a Profession,” The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 297 (January 1955)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Greenwood, Ernest, “Attributes of a Profession,” Social Work (July 1957)Google Scholar, reprinted in Vollmer, H.M. and Mills, D.M., eds, Professionalization (Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1966)Google Scholar; and MacIver, R.M., “The Social Significance of Professional Ethics,” The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Vol. 101 (May 1922)Google Scholar, reprinted in Vol. 297 (January 1955).

2 See, for example, Merriam, Charles, Public and Private Government (New Haven, 1944).Google Scholar

3 See, for example, Kariel, Henry, The Decline of American Pluralism (Stanford, 1961)Google Scholar; and McConnell, Grant, Private Power and American Democracy (New York, 1966).Google Scholar

4 Lakoff, Sanford, “Private Government and the New Pluralism,” in Lakoff, Sanford, ed., Private Government: Introductory Readings (Glenview, Ill., 1973), 5.Google Scholar

5 Ibid.

6 “A Political Theory of Property,” in Macpherson, , Democratic Theory: Essays in Retrieval (Oxford, 1973), 124Google Scholar

7 Ibid., 126

8 Ibid.

9 Gilb, Corinne Lathrop, Hidden Hierarchies: The Professions and Government (New York, 1966), 7Google Scholar

10 Presthus, Robert, Elite Accommodation in Canadian Politics (Toronto, 1973), 24–8Google Scholar; see also Rea, K.J. and McLeod, J.T., Business and Government in Canada (2nd ed., Toronto, 1976)Google Scholar, Part IV

11 For an elaboration of this argument, see Tuohy, Carolyn J. and Wolfson, Alan D., “The Political Economy of Professionalism: A Perspective,” Consumer Research Council, Department of Consumer and Corporate Affairs, Ottawa 1976.Google Scholar

12 The property rights of professions with licensing authority are more exclusive than those of professions which merely certify. In the former case, unlicensed practice is illegal; in the latter, certification merely implies the attainment of a level of competence acceptable to the certifying body. Certification may amount to de facto licensure, however, when it becomes a condition of employment in certain institutions (as, for example, hospitals) in which professional practice has become concentrated.

13 Tuohy, C.J., “Medical Politics after Medicare: The Ontario Case,” Canadian Public Policy 2 (Spring 1976), 192–210Google Scholar

14 “The New Property,” Yale Law Journal 73 (April 1964), reprinted in The Public Interest 1:3 (Spring 1966), 57–89; references below are to the latter version

15 Ibid., 77–8

16 Ibid., 87

17 Ibid., 88. See also Rohr, John A., “Property Rights and Social Reform,” America (19 July 1975).Google Scholar

18 Macpherson, “Political Theory of Property,” 137

19 Quoted in Worth, Roger, “Ontario Architects Don't Like Engineers’ Designs,” The Financial Post, 19 April 1975Google Scholar

20 The Health Disciplines Act, Statutes of Ontario, 1974, chap. 47, section 3.1

21 Ibid., sections 25(l), 50(k), 96(i)

22 The Quebec legislation (LQ 1973, chap. 43, and accompanying statutes) is discussed in Dussault, René and Borgeat, Louis, “La reforme des professions au Quebec,” Revue de Barreau du Quebec 34 (May 1974)Google Scholar, reprinted in Canadian Public Administration 17 (Fall 1974), 407–42; references below are to the latter version.

23 Ibid., pp. 414–15 (translated from the French)

24 For a discussion of one such mechanism, the Medical Review Committee of the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario, see Tuohy, “Medical Politics,” 200–1, 206

25 Even while the provincial governments are being brought to such an exercise of their regulatory powers, however, recent changes in federal policy indicate the development of quite another type of challenge to the corporate property rights of professions. Recent amendments to federal anti-combines legislation extending the prohibition against price-fixing to include professional fee schedules challenges not the private nature of professional property, but rather one of its corporate aspects – the ability of the professional group to fix the rate of return to its property.