uction As long as the United States of America has been around, there has been some sort of governing body involved. Whether it was the tribes of Native American Indians, the early days of settlers into Plymouth Rock, or to the structured government that we have in place now, there has always been some sort of entity making the “rules” and trying to better this country. This country has jumped leaps and bounds since the early days, but that growth has not come without its battles. One of those battles was between the Spoils System and the Merit/Civil Service System. These two different personnel systems helped pave the way for modern public personnel management. Both of these systems had their advantages and disadvantages. This paper will define, explain, compare, and contrast the two systems. The Spoils System A very important value in this system is a term called patronage. Patronage is basically referring to the action of appointing an individual on not merit, but on what or who they knew and supported (Naff, 2014). This building block set the tone for the whole system. The Spoils System was a personnel system that first began in 1829 (Naff, 2014). This system began during the administration of our seventh President Andrew …show more content…
The first term is merit. Merit is defined as “workers should be hired based on their ability to do the job. In principles, even without significant legal protection, it was expected that they would retain those as long as their performance was satisfactory (Naff, 2014, pg.#). Another important value here is political neutrality. Political neutrality says that “employees should be (1) protected against arbitrary action, personnel favoritism, or coercion for partisan political purposes, and (2) prohibited from using their official authority or influence for the purpose of interring with or affecting the result of a partisan election or a nomination for election (Naff, 2014,
As Andrew Jackson once said, “many of our rich men have not been content with equal protection and equal benefits, but have besought us to make them richer by acts of Congress”. This fits the classism model, or the systematic oppression of subordinated class groups to advantage and strengthen the dominant class groups, the lower class’ injustices allowing the upper class to thrive and be bettered. The elite’s mindset that they are more important than the average citizen allows them to hold the idea that they deserve more rights or protection than the average citizen as well. Huston expands on this application while expounding on the political economy of aristocracy, advancing that “in lands characterized by political monopoly, rulers, monarchs, or aristocrats used governmental policies to enrich themselves and their retainers, thus producing a maldistribution of wealth” (Huston 1089). This political monopoly model holds true in America today with the upper class taking advantage of governmental processes to better themselves above regular tax-paying citizens with the idea that they are deserving of it. James Huston again validates this reasoning by stating “the rich and powerful too often bend the acts of government to their selfish purposes” (Huston 1098).
Scandal inevitably accompanied the new system. Men who had openly bought their posts by campaign contributions were appointed to high office. Often times illiterate incompetents, and plain crooks were given position of public trust.
The curse of civil service reform to George W. Plunkitt was that patriotic young men could not get jobs without passing the civil service examinations. Plunkitt's objections about civil service reform are two fold, not only cou...
When the Democrats rose to power in the White House, they replaced most of the people in offices with their own people (the common man). These people were illiterate and incompetent. This system of rewarding political supporters with jobs in the government was known as the "spoils system."
During and after the turmoil of the American Revolution, the people of America, both the rich and the poor, the powerful and the meek, strove to create a new system of government that would guide them during their unsure beginning. This first structure was called the Articles of Confederation, but it was ineffective, restricted, and weak. It was decided to create a new structure to guide the country. However, before a new constitution could be agreed upon, many aspects of life in America would have to be considered. The foremost apprehensions many Americans had concerning this new federal system included fear of the government limiting or endangering their inalienable rights, concern that the government’s power would be unbalanced, both within its branches and in comparison to the public, and trepidation that the voice of the people would not be heard within the government.
(VOF111) In America power is within the population of the American people in comparison to the Romans who had to deal with aristocracy. As long as the government creates a just system and allows us our freedom and rights, conflict will not occur between the public and authoritative figures. However it is essential that they create laws so that no man has to much property, leaving them with an exceptional hold on power. As said in the document by Noah Webster, “property is the basis of power; and this,being established as a cardinal point, directs us towards the means of preserving our freedom”(VOF111). It comes down to the idea that the man who works the hardest, saves his money, and is a genuinely good citizen should possess his share of property and power rather then have it passed down from generation to generation within a family. Thomas Jefferson supported this belief and eventually passed a law in Virginia eradicating entail and primogeniture. This allowed those who work diligently to be rewarded due to all of their hard work paying off. He gave out a percentage of land to those that were of full age and did not already have it, which benefitted
Andrew Jackson was born and raised in the south and his family was never too wealthy. When he became president, his main ideal was that anybody, no matter if they are rich or poor, can become successful. He was a president of the people and he took many measures to ensure that they could and would have a role in government. One of these actions was the creation of the spoils system. The spoils system is an arrangement in which the president
With Jackson as President, he promised “equal protection and equal benefits” for all Americans, well all white Americans. Jackson had promised his supporters a position in the government in return for political support. Jackson kept his promises by removing about 20% or 919 officials and replaced them with supporters (“Spoils System (Andrew Jackson”.) He kept using the spoils system till the late 1860s, when people demanded a civil service system. In the Pendleton Act of 1883, this created a Civil System Commission t...
During this time the political platforms that were highlighted started with the controversy of the spoils system, a system that presidents abused of until 1883 with the Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act stating that political office openings were to be given to people who qualified, not to members of a certain political party. To the ordinary American they found this to be unacceptable and infuriating, they started movements against the spoil system, and at its peak a new political party, the liberal republican party who were in favor of a civil reform, according to author Corbett, “With newspaper editor Horace Greeley as their
The Spoils System is defined in the U.S., as the practice of making appointments to public office and of giving employment in the public service on the basis of political affiliation or personal relationship rather than based on merit. It is an extreme form of political patronage and favoritism that originated during the colonial period but flourished in state administrations after the 19th century. The opposite of the spoils system is the merit system, established in the U.S. government system in 1883, which promoted and hired government employees based on their ability to perform a job, rather than on their political relationships. The spoils system has a negative impact on the government because it produces a corrupt government that is more concerned with political party favoritism than with the needs of the public. A merit system is ultimately better because it examines federal employees on their specialized skills and education in a way that filters out the incompetent workers and leaves only the most skilled workers. The merit system paved the way for more expertise and less politics in government.
M. Petrescu, e. a. (2010). Public Management: between the Traditional and New Model. Review of International Comparative 408 Management , 411.
The study of public administration only continued to grow over the course of the next two decades. As the study of public administration expanded, so did the development of s...
Since its emergence as a field of study, there have been some important contributions to public administration. Its goal has always been to improve productivity which then improves workplace performance. All of the contributions have been aimed at completing the work with the highest level of efficiency and at the lowest cost.
Clifford, J. P. (1994). Job Analysis: Why do it, and how should it be done? Public Personnel Management. Volume 23. Pp. 321-340.
Public personnel administration consists of three general systems. The first one I’ll talk about is civil service. The civil service helps to protect employee rights and safeguard efficiency. Historically, personnel administration shifted from emphasizing the value of responsiveness to emphasizing political neutral competence among public employees. Before they would use the spoils system and the patronage system, which selected employees and awarded government contracts based on loyalty or party affiliation. In this present day, we are using more of the civil service system, which is a method of choosing employees based on certain formal qualifications such as competitive exams instead of political patronage. It all start...