As capitalist, he is only capital personified. His soul is the soul of capital. – Karl Marx
On the 5th of November, 2017 the Toronto Star published an article titled “Massive leak pulls back the curtain on offshore tax havens – again.” The article is a quick run down of the latest leak of records from a law firm, Appleby, focused on facilitating “offshore activities that keep billions of tax income beyond the reach of governments around the world.” This leak has been named the Paradise Papers which is made up of 13.4 million records, 1.4 terabytes of “detailed corporate records, including emails, memos, spreadsheets, correspondence, and meeting minutes.”
As the Panama Papers before it the Paradise Papers have revealed the world of offshore tax havens where the rich hoard their wealth. Much of the news surrounding the Paradise Papers, in Canada at least, revolves around the fact that what these people have done is perfectly legal, albeit distasteful, and as such takes on the form of a public finger wagging.
The articles produced by various media outlets revolve around moralistic and sensationalistic exposés. Financial ties between Putin’s family and a Trump adviser, Trudeau fundraisers and their schemes to protect their money, the involvement of former Canadian prime ministers, Bono buying a mall in Lithuania. What isn’t discussed is the professionals who kept the records that allowed this law firm to function, and document all of these prominent individuals: the recordkeepers.
Instead of focusing on the sensational we should be focused on the structure. When I say ‘structure’ what I mean is the legal and political structures. Money for everyday people is used to purchase goods which allows us to live, as well as luxuries that make life more enjoyable. It is not for the use of producing more money. For wealthy individuals, and as shown by the Paradise Papers, their purpose of their money is not for immediate use but the creation of more and more wealth, and organizations such as Appleby is to provide the services to do so. This is where the role of recordkeepers come in, as Hurley notes, “[r]ecordkeeping is necessary to the conduct of any business – individual or corporate.”
Despite being integral to the functioning of Appleby, and subsequently integral to maintaining the records that would be leaked, the role of recordkeepers hasn’t been touched on by the media. The role of recordkeeper outside of the organization in which they work, and sometimes within that organization itself, is one that is largely invisible. This explains why no one has seen fit to either congratulate or condemn a recordkeeper for this leak.
But why not? What role do recordkeepers play in this, and what responsibilities can we place upon them? Michael Buckland, a professor of library and information studies writing on the nature of records management theory, notes that “the mission of a records management service needs to be related to and supportive of the mission of the organization as a whole…[i]f we are to assert that the role of records management is important, then we need to have views on how a good records management program contributes to and supports the effectiveness of the organization.”
It is telling that the Generally Accepted Recordkeeping Principles lack any principle in regard to the role of recordkeepers to reveal the unjust practices of their employer. A recordkeeper’s responsibility ends where the relevant legislation regarding record-keeping ends. While archival theory has grappled with the ethical responsibilities of archivists, record management theory has rested content with the knowledge that their responsibility is towards the mission of their organization, not to the public at large.
What the short-lived media fury has told recordkeepers can be found within Glenn Dingwall’s statement: “[s]ociety’s expectations of what can be accomplished through records have changed, too. Within western democracies, the expectation of increased access to records is accompanied by an increased expectation of transparency and accountability for public and private institutions – particularly for private institutions in sectors such as finance, health, and other areas where the actions of corporations can have sweeping consequences for society as a whole.” Dingwall, exploring how different theories regarding how records should be managed and kept create different boundaries within the recordkeeping profession, shows that regardless of how recordkeepers think of themselves, as either archivists or record managers or both, the public at large is demanding more of recordkeepers even if the public doesn’t call for them by name.
As those recordkeepers who see themselves primarily as records managers we must begin questioning our ethical responsibilities to the public at large. It is unlikely that hard answers will come soon, but it is an obligation for us to acknowledge our role in these structures and to question whether or not they are structures we should participate in.
Sources
Karl Marx, Capital Volume One: The Process of Capitalist Production, trans. Samuel Moore and Edward Aveling, ed. By Frederick Engels (New York: International Publishers, 1967) 233
Alex Boutilier, Marco Chown Oved, and Robert Cribb, “Massive leak pulls back the curtain on offshore tax havens – again,” Toronto Star, Nov. 5, 2017, https://www.thestar.com/news/paradise-papers/2017/11/05/massive-leak-pulls-back-the-curtain-on-offshore-tax-havens-again.html.
Boutilier, Oved, Cribb, “Massive leak pulls back the curtain on offshore tax havens – again.”
Chris Hurley, What, if Anything, is Records Management? (Canberra: RMAA Conference, 2004)
Michael Buckland, “On the Nature of Records Management Theory,” American Archivist 57 (Spring 1994) 349.
Glenn Dingwall, “Life Cycle and Continuum: A View of Recordkeeping Models from the Postwar Era,” in Currents of Archival Thinking, ed. Terry Eastwood and Heather MacNeil (Santa Barabara: Libraries Unlimited, 2010) 150.