Public Choice and Burnout

The revolutionary assumption of public choice is that those in power serve their private interest. Previous scholarship assumed that public figures acted in the public interest. By passing through the apse of the state building, a person is transformed from a mostly rational, mostly self-interested person into a perfectly rational, publicly-motivated servant. A casual glance at Washington DC or your local statehouse shows the fallacy of that illogical idea. People are who people are. This logic trickles down to the staff members, bureaucrats, and regulators, as well.

As someone who works in an industry entirely dependent on government assistance, I feel that there is a subliminal lie told to social workers that they too act largely in the public interest. I don't consider myself a bureaucrat, but I don't see why the same assumptions should not apply to me. I can think of countless things I do each day because my incentives are to do them or not to do them. There is an infinite number of things that would benefit my clients, other staff, or the general public that I do not do because there are disincentives for that behavior. Just the same, there are some things I do in my job that are not good for certain clients, other staff, or the public that I engage in because the system incentives me to do it (or sometimes outright requires it).

When a person's belief in government is shaken by some of the conclusions of public choice theory and a critical examination of policy, politics, and results (as it well should be), people generally withdraw from government. Talk to any hill staffer who has burned out, and you will hear the voice of a semi-libertarian. They instinctively dislike government and will largely stand clear of it. Once you know how the sausage is made, you really don't want to eat it.

But what happens to a person who grapples with the same problems, toiling in a system that is flawed for the same reasons, but who has made a life choice to dedicate themselves to this career? What happens when a person realizes they are serving their own interests, not those of the public or their clients? Burnout is a phenomenon that is not well-understood in mental health literature. It is often brought up as secondary to job stress and difficult client interactions. I believe that those cause vicarious traumatization and deleterious stress effects; however burnout is an almost spiritual affliction. It robs a social worker of their very drive.

Perhaps if we were taught to embrace our own self-interest, to approach this work for our own various interests--be they financial, psychological, political, or what have you--we would suffer from less burnout because that conflict between public interest and private interest would be obviated. That conflict robs the individual of their sense of duty or calling when they are forced to act in their own self-interest and to reflect upon and relive that fact every day.