Fic Updates 48

[Norgarth]

A Thing of Vikings
https://archiveofourown.org/works/104089.../106524579

...as such, the methods by which appointments to offices and positions are handled are of supreme importance to avoid or at least reduce the development of entrenched interests and corruption.

Generally speaking, systems of organization that allow for appointment to offices by patronage are highly susceptible to corruption due to the fact that such appointees are typically more concerned with the needs of their patron than they are with the needs of their office—or, conversely, those who show inadequate concerns for the needs of their patron typically find themselves removed and replaced with more compliant individuals. Unfortunately, systems of patronage are typical in environments where the organization is the personal concern of the head individual, such as in absolute monarchies, dictatorships, private businesses and corporations, and other such institutions, where, so long as the patron is satisfied with the performance of their appointee, the appointee can make use of their position for personal gain. In the worst cases, positions can literally be available for purchase, with the understanding or even expectation that they will be used for personal profit by the purchaser.

Conversely, systems of organization that require merit and competence to be appointed to official positions and are kept accountable to those that they serve tend to show lower rates of corruption and abuse of office. This is not to say that they are immune—especially for those systems which underpay their functionaries, who somehow need to recoup the difference between their wages and those resources necessary for survival, and turn to corruption of their office as a means to do so—but such systems allowing for the ability to remove a misbehaving office-holder from their position without needing the consent of potentially corrupt managers have a means by which to directly reduce and react to corruption.

In the end, the difference is between that of a king distributing personal fiefs to his friends for them to manage as they see fit, versus that of a government appointing managers who are answerable to their constituents.

—Nationbuilding: How People Move, Talk, Think, Organize, & Structure Themselves, 1888, Amsterdam University Press