Policy and the Passive Voice

"something should be done" is not as compelling when you start imagining human implementation

What is the difference between the active voice and the passive voice?

Now, I am using active voice.

Now, passive voice is being used.

In active voice, I admit that I messed up.

In passive voice, mistakes were made.

Active voice puts a focus on the actor. In passive voice, it becomes unclear who is the actor.

Suppose that a corporation is having problems with customer support. If the CEO is in active voice, he or she will designate a subordinate to address the problems, giving that person both authority and accountability. If the CEO is in passive voice, he or she will say that “improvement is needed in customer support” without assigning responsibility to anyone in particular.

In public policy, pundits turn to passive voice when the idea of giving someone authority to deal with a problem sounds scary. I can think of several examples.

In passive voice, it is easy to say “All illegal immigrants should be deported.” But in active voice, that means sending government agents in uniform to knock on everyone’s door, demanding proof of citizenship from those inside. Your door and my door would be knocked on, because until they try everyone’s door, the agents have no way of knowing which residences house illegal immigrants and which do not.

In passive voice, it is easy to say, “Misinformation on social media should be banned.” But in active voice, that means assigning specific individuals to sift through social media content and determine what is misinformation. Presumably, they will need help from software, but specific people with specific ideas will have to design that software. The people writing the software and making the decisions will be ordinary humans, with their flaws and biases.

Turning to health care policy, there is considerable evidence that Americans undergo many medical procedures that have high costs and low benefits. An article in Wikipedia points out that

The Institute of Medicine reported in September 2012 that approximately $750B per year in U.S. health care costs are avoidable or wasted. This included: unnecessary services ($210 billion annually); inefficient delivery of care ($130 billion); excess administrative costs ($190 billion); inflated prices ($105 billion); prevention failures ($55 billion), and fraud ($75 billion).

In passive voice, it is easy to say, “The wasteful medical procedures should be curtailed.” But in active voice, it can mean giving a panel of experts the power to decide which procedures are approved and which are too expensive relative to their benefits. President Obama did in fact propose an Independent Medical Advisory Panel to do this. But it proved to be too unpopular to be given any real authority.

A Libertarian Point

I am making a point here in favor of libertarianism. In passive voice, it can seem persuasive to say that “something should be done” about a problem. But in active voice, it means giving ordinary, flawed human beings the power to intrude into the lives of their fellow citizens. And once we formulate the issue in those terms, the attempt to use government to solve the problem becomes less appealing.