Private practice

“ For those whom the state has assigned you as companions and assistants in public business, you are answerable only within the limits I have just laid down; but for those whom you have chosen to associate with yourself as members of your private establishment and personal suite, you will be held responsible not only for all they do, but for all they say.... ”

“ By the duties of publick station, we understand those of the private citizen, as well as those of the citizen who fills a publick trust. The first lie at the root of the social compact, and are entitled to be first enumerated. ”

“ Hence as a private man has a right to say, what wages he will give in his private affairs, so has a Community to determine what they will give and grant of their Substance, for the Administration of publick affairs. ”

“ In the third state, toward which society is trending, the concept of service will rule, and private property as a dominant concept will be compelled to take a thoroughly subordinate place in human activities. ”

“ The idea that those who control an institution should be familiar with its details appears to originate in an analogy with a man’s control of his own private affairs, when his occupation and income{41} make it necessary that he should attend to all those affairs personally. The citizen who digs and plants his own garden must understand some of the details of gardening. ”

“ But these duties become diversified and specialized according as we view man either in the light of the private functions he fills in society, which are his professional duties, or in the light of the particular society of which he is a member, and which is called the State or the country, and these are the civic duties. ”

“ Is the duty of honest services limited “to public officials” serving the government? Ibid. Does it also apply “to private individuals who contract with the public?” Ibid. Or does it apply to “everyone” who owes some sort of fiduciary responsibility to others, including (say) a corporate officer? Ibid. What source of law, too, should a court consult to answer these questions? ”

“ Perhaps we may say that the main thing is to mind his private business in a public spirit—always remembering that men who are in a position to do so should make it their private business to attend to public affairs. ”

“ The proprietors must decide what it will be prudent and practical to adopt for the support of the Institution.
‘If the support of scientific men is to be obtained, something must be done to give the Institution more the form of a public establishment than of private and hereditary property. ”

“ I commit to ethical choices of post-Government employment that do not raise the appearance that I have used my Government service for private gain, including by using confidential information acquired and relationships established for the benefit of future clients. ”

“ Now to instruct each individual in what manner to govern his own conduct in the details of life, is the particular business of private ethics: to instruct individuals in what manner to govern the conduct of those whose happiness, during nonage, is committed to their charge, is the business of the art of private education. ”

“ Until we have developed and applied, much beyond present standards, the policy and practice of social agency on the part of individuals in the conduct of business, direct public control, and even public management of many kinds of business is the dictate of reason, of prudence and of patriotism. ”

“ Thirdly, the Society is endeavouring to stimulate private study by the circulation of useful tracts, and by the offer of prizes to such as may be willing that their private study should be tested by competitive examination. ”

“ The cases need no explanatory or fortifying comment. They demonstrate that a business, by circumstances and its nature, may rise from private to be of public concern, and be subject, in consequence, to governmental regulation. ”

“ This Government ought to employ men of real worth and capacity: it is not always that those showing qualities attracting attention in private life, or as companions, are of real capacity. Do those who administer the Government make it a rule to employ in the public service none but men of real capacity, or worth, of integrity, and of high character? Do they give their contracts and offices without fear, favor, or affection, to men of responsibility and character—to such men as you would in private life give your own contracts to? ”

“ Every particular of conduct, public or private, is to be open to the public eye, and to be kept, by the power of opinion, in the course which the Spiritual corporation shall judge to be the most right. ”

“ The state expresses the cooperative or mutual-veto will of that part of society which is politically organized for this purpose. Private property expresses the individual will of the several private owners, or of the private chief, whether patriarch, pope, suzerain, boss, or industrial monopolist, who is at the head of the particular institution. The sociological view, being strictly inductive, does not impart to the theory of the state that which is potential and ideal, but only that which is actual and historical. ”

“ But is it fair to judge of rights which appertain to the structure of our government, and are necessary for its proper administration, and the safety of the people, by analogy to a private association of individuals, whose rights, if not regulated by express contract, are regulated by the arbitrary dictates of positive law? You may suppose a private association to be regulated by any principles which you may please to fancy, and hence may suppose the right of instruction to exist or not at your pleasure. ”

“ Even vested rights are subject to the law of welfare involved in the original act establishing special privileges. Public use, not private interest, is the true reason for the existence of any such privileges or protection. ”

“ They propose not to leave a single concealed private advantage in the statutes concerning the duties that can possibly be eradicated without affecting the part of the business that is sound and legitimate and which we all wish to see promoted. ”

“ The ancient commonwealths thought themselves entitled to practise, and the ancient philosophers countenanced, the regulation of every part of private conduct by public authority, on the ground that the State had a deep interest in the whole bodily and mental discipline of every one of its citizens ”

“ The magistrates who discharge public trusts fulfil their domestic duties also,—the private citizen, while engaged in professional business, has competent knowledge on public affairs: for we stand alone in regarding the man who keeps aloof from these latter, not as harmless, but as useless. ”

“ The chief thing, therefore, which lawgivers, and other wise men that have laboured for the establishment of society, have endeavoured, has been to make the people they were to govern, believe, that it was more beneficial for every body to conquer than indulge his appetites, and much better to mind the public than what seemed his private interest. ”

“ Part I — Principles of Ethical Conduct Section 101. Principles of Ethical Conduct. To ensure that every citizen can have complete confidence in the integrity of the Federal Government, each Federal employee shall respect and adhere to the fundamental principles of ethical service as implemented in regulations promulgated under sections 201 and 301 of this order:
(a) Public service is a public trust. requiring employees to place loyalty to the Constitution, the laws, and ethical principles above private gain. ”

“ Because private enterprise really meant more, therefore the Government said more, and the very defining of the work and circumscribing of its sphere made the results sounder, more lasting, and more substantial. ”

“ The employers talk about "private enterprise," as if there were anything private about modern enterprise. Its combines are as big as many commonwealths; and things advertised in large letters on the sky cannot plead the shy privileges of privacy. ”

“ Still more salutary is the moral part of the instruction afforded by the participation of the private citizen, if even rarely, in public functions. He is called upon, while so engaged, to weigh interests not his own; to be guided, in case of conflicting claims, by another rule than his private partialities; to apply, at every turn, principles and maxims which have for their reason of existence the general good ”

“ Aware of the unworthy reputation of its business men, in respect of business morality, the commercial schools, higher and lower, government and private, are placing emphasis upon the side of moral instruction and discipline in preparation for business life. ”

“ In fact, as soon as individuals shall be educated and placed—and it is for the best and permanent interest of society that all should be educated and placed—the saving of time, labour, and capital, between public and private property, will be beyond any estimate the mind of man can form in favour of public property.... ”

“ The people have a right to demand here, as in cases of private employment, that their money be paid to those who will render the best service in return, and that the appointment to and tenure of such places should depend upon ability and merit. ”

“ Now if we compare the example of the most modern States, with regard to this tendency, we shall find the design of acting for the individual citizen, and of providing for his welfare, to be clear and unmistakable from the number of laws and institutions directed to this end, and which often give a very determinate form to private life. ”

“ This, however, we are persuaded, arises entirely from their being seldom set on such tedious tasks. Their proper and natural business is the practical regulations of private life, in all its bearings, affections, and concerns ”

“ A growing sense of personal responsibility both on the part of those who suffered from existing conditions and on the part of those who profited by them was paving the way for a speedy application and a willing acceptance of a system of conservative public regulation of private business in which careful consideration would be given to the rights of all persons. ”

“ It cannot plead its inherently private character or its subordination to the market as cover for the pursuit of different goals of particular interest to itself. The public agency has an unquestioned tendency to pursue goals that reflect its own interest and convenience and to adapt social objective thereto. ”

“ Under which system, private or public ownership, will they have most personal discretion or authority over the conduct of matters within their professional competence? Under which will they have the best guarantees that their special knowledge will carry due weight, and that, when handling matters of art, they will not be overridden or obstructed by amateurs? ”

“ As to a supposed inexpediency, on economic grounds, of attracting persons from private to the public service, there can be little doubt that things would soon arrange themselves as regularly and quietly in this branch of employment as they do in every other. ”

“ There is no guarantee that, if other guardians of capital were appointed, the public would be better served.416 Modern industry has long ago proved the administrative superiority of private enterprise in commercial transactions; and all social functions that admit of it will gradually pass into private management, always excepting the great theoretic functions in which combined action will ever be necessary. ”

“ There are private philanthropists who act so that needy persons or the community as a whole profit by the endowment of libraries, hospitals and educational institutions. In short, private acts may be socially valuable both by indirect consequences and by direct intention. ”

“ Government is not partly public or partly private, depending upon the governmental pedigree of the type of a particular activity or the manner in which the Government conducts it. The Government may carry on its operations through conventional executive agencies or through corporate forms especially created for defined ends. ”

“ No private agency should allow its finest fruits of longest study and effort to be absorbed by official provision and control, unless it can gain assurance that those fruits will be secure in the transfer. ”

“ It is our thesis that in this distinction we find the key to the nature and office of the state. It is not without significance that etymologically “private” is defined in opposition to “official,” a private person being one deprived of public position. The public consists of all those who are affected by the indirect consequences of16 transactions to such an extent that it is deemed necessary to have those consequences systematically cared for. Officials are those who look out for and take care of the interests thus affected. ”

“ Examples of private legislation are acts incorporating individual companies and laying down the principles on which they are to be administered, acts regulating the navigation of some river, or the construction and management of some harbour, or any other enactments concerned, not with the interests of the realm or the public at large, but with those of private individuals or particular localities. ”

“ To guide them in political life, much more difficult than in private life, they require a similar guide to the one they take in the difficult matters of their individual life, a legal or business adviser, one that is qualified and competent, able to understand the prefecture documents, sitting alongside of them to explain their budget, rights and limits of their rights, the financial resources, legal expedients, and consequences of a law ”

“ Every man is to be considered in two capacities, the private and public; as designed to pursue his own interest, and likewise to contribute to the good of others. ”