“Quid Pro Quo”: a useful distinction between voluntary market arrangements and government arrangements ...

Understanding “Quid Pro Quo”

by Gary Galles

Like other spontaneously evolving systems, language tends to move in the direction of more effective cooperation. But sometimes usage distorts once-clear words into sources of confusion.

C.S. Lewis cited “gentleman” as an example. Its usage moved from stating a fact —a man who was landed and had a coat of arms — to a way of praising someone’s behavior, something we already had plenty of words for. But in the process, the word lost its ability to clearly communicate what it once meant.

Quid pro quo is a phrase that has similarly evolved from offering clarity to producing confusion. It originally meant “something for something.” That offered a useful distinction between voluntary market arrangements, in which people were induced to cooperate by being offered adequate compensation, and government arrangements (or robbery), in which such inducements need not be offered.

However, the usage of quid pro quo has evolved to typically mean an exchange of equally valuablegoods or services. In the process, it has muddied the distinction between voluntary and involuntary arrangements.

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