Promote Interests: L1

4-α Universal: Articulate and assert specific shared values.

In principle, every member of a society is a member of that society's institutions and has a beneficial interest in its continuing satisfactory functioning. Promoting this interest involves asserting the importance of a limited facet of the institution i.e. a shared value.

Essence of the Work 

To assert the current importance of a specific personal/communal need that most agree should be met in society.

Needs are experienced by all in society. Any overarching need gets affiliated with other needs or conditions: practical, customary, and ethical. Any need can also be broken down into more detailed needs based on the functional specialization of the institution.

Example Closed: 

ClosedMore on Needs & Institutions

During socialization at home, at school and in the streets, every member of society becomes aware of their needs and the various societal institutions that purport to meet them.

•Everyone experiences the full range of human needs and develops and understanding of what is important in getting those needs met.

•Every one ends up self-employed or employed within bodies that constitute one or other of the institutions whether or not they are aware of that.

•Everyone ends up sooner or later directly or indirectly associated with every institution in their society. The only outsiders within the country are tourists and temporary residents.

In a free society, no one should be hesitant to say what they need or what their community needs. While asserting a value or explaining a need is not difficult, publicizing that need in wider society requires more effort. It only occurs when it is in an individual or organisation's interest to do so.

Reform-oriented charities and umbrella organisations representing a business sector promote values best because they are constituted and funded to press for certain needs and values.

Domination of Interests

Although everyone may share a need and recognize the importance of meeting that need, only those who currently experience that need have a driving interest that leads them to seek to make an impact on the institution.

Interest can be categorized in two forms:

a) «Vested interests» which implies a stake in the outcome without any necessary concern for the overall institutional state or the well-being of the general public. Vested interest exists in two forms:

i) personal—due to current involvement via employment, or a requirement for service, or in the form of enlightened self-interest;
ii) organisational—due to a mission that depends on the institution.

b) «The public interest» which implies benefit for all citizens either now or in the future. All, including government, media and participant organisations, are expected to respect the public good—even if its exact nature may be subject to debate.

It follows that vested interests are an inescapable feature of institutions. Many observers have noted that «vested interests» are intrinsically highly motivated, determined, focussed and funded—in contrast to «the public interest» which is diffuse, disembodied, ill-defined and typically poorly funded.

Personal interests are maximal for a person who will benefit from a particular improvement to the institution.

If you or someone close to you is ill, then you will have a much greater personal interest in the availability of facilities for treatment, than if you are well. If you are a parent of young children, you will have a personal interest in their present and future education, while if you are a retiree, your interest may well be minimal.

Anyone employed full-time within a social body, profit or non-profit, that is part of a particular institution will automatically have a personal/vested interest in the status and funding of that institution. I call them the "in-group".

People within the in-group are the institution's foot soldiers, proclaiming the importance of their institution for wider society in whatever they do and say, but inevitably adapted to their particular employment.

Example: A medical researcher seeking funds for a trial of a safer, shorter, less painful therapy is an in-group member of the healthcare institution. As well as generally affirming the need for health care, he is likely to be focus on the need for medical research, for better drugs, for controlled trials &c.

Component organizations of an institution naturally have a vested interest in benefiting from the institution.

Anyone responsible for such a social body, typically the Chairman and chief executive, will be concerned to get changes to their institution that increase its finances, power, and sometimes prestige or reputation. More seriously, such a body typically desires to block any change to the status quo that would lead to disadvantage—even if the change reduces suffering or gives benefit to others in society.

The most effective way forward is to join with other firms in the sector to create a membership body with a mission to lobby (see below).

It is in the public interest to effectively and efficiently meet universal human needs in society. So when it is claimed, for example, that everyone has a right to housing, a right to healthcare, a right to legal representations &c, what is meant is that it is in the interests of the members of that society for these needs to be met. However, it may not be in the interests of certain classes, certain businesses or even the government.

The social expectation is that no-one is likely to be unaware of or disagree with the values that make up the public interest. These values are affirmed when someone willingly signs a petition or responds to a survey or answers a reporter in relation to small issues like convenient access to clinics or enough nurses on duty on weekends, or more research on a common cancer.

The media preferentially picks up public interest stories because they are simple, obvious, easy to tell, and readers resonate. Even if no-one actually has these rights and it is not possible to claim them, they can be supported in courts or legislatures when powerful political or economic actors act in ways that deliberately harm the poor and the weak.

ClosedAcademic Views

«Public interest» is conventionally a contested concept that is left indeterminate.

The public interest can be tautologically defined as a matter in which the public has an interest (i.e. as distinct from a matter of interest to a particular individual or group). The public interest is often extended to include the needs of future generations: as yet unborn and therefore unable to speak up for themselves.

Classically (cf. J. S. Mill), a change is in the public interest if it would be preferred by someone who, prior to the change, does not know whether they would be affected. A similar idea was developed by John Rawls.

Confusion arises because the public interest is often seen to be about decisions rather than values. In practice, because different institutions are commonly involved in a particular situation, choices may lead to immediate conflict between valid communal needs e.g. welfare needs conflict with security needs, economic needs with healthcare needs. From the larger value perspective, there is no conflict: welfare depends on security, and the economy depends on healthy people.

How is the Work Done

Everyone is capable of focusing on a personal need which an institution is failing to serve adequately. The response is a specific concern that can be simply phrased.

Persons: Each and every member of society is capable of defending their own interests in this way. But emphatic assertions in a pub or over coffee is not work. Work entails making those interests public: in personal blogs, in attending live social affairs TV programs, by signing petitions if asked, and writing to a national newspaper or to a politician.

While this work is typically self-centred, it is beneficial to like-minded others. So more active assertion involves joining in public protests, street marches with banners, and other displays that bring attention to the issue.

Organizations: Any single organisation is weak, almost invisible, in the face of society's complexity. However, there are usually multiple organisations in any sector that share a particular interest, so work and funding to address institutional evolution can be assigned to the collective i.e. membership bodies, industry associations or umbrella organisations. Such bodies representing just one sector of the institution can be well-funded and potentially influential in protecting those vested interests even if it disadvantages others. This work may involve continuous or episodic lobbying, advertising propaganda and financial incentives.

Taking Action

Once an interest reaches a certain level of importance, any person or organisation will take steps to promote it.

Plotting the Work

Publicly expressing a concern relevant to your interests must resonate with others in society and reflect a consensus if it is to have any impact. That puts promoting interests in the upper half of the X-axis.

However, generating publicity around your interests does not require a great deal of knowledge of the institution in all its complexity. That places the effort in the lower half of the Y-axis.

Promoted interests are therefore sited in the lower right quadrant with the various interests probably falling into an ellipse: as is usual for t1/L1.

Looking more closely, the public interest lies at the maximum regarding a concern for consensus because very few are expected to disagree that, ideally, all needs should be met one way or another. At the same time, virtually no knowledge about the institution is required in regard to affirming an unmet need. So public interest is sited at the extreme lower right of the quadrant.

Anyone employed within the institution or anyone impacted by a deficiency is far less preoccupied with consensus. They are likely to possess a greater knowledge of the institution, even if this is still restricted to their area of operation or personal concern. So these vested interests lie at the other end of the ellipse. The exact position varies, but the greater the dependency on public opinion, the more concern for consensus.

All institutions need their functioning publicized and explained in terms of needs and related social values. However, that does not indicate how to remove a limitation or solve a failure to meet a need.

Originally posted: 9-Nov-2022. Last updated: 30-Jun-2023.