innonimatu
the resident Cassandra
- Joined
- Dec 4, 2006
- Messages
- 15,350
I'm deliberately not putting the headline as a question. Though of course the idea is to discuss it.
Was just reading another piece of news, this one from Germany, about a very efficient businessman putting out the competition and "revolutionizing" an industry... by lowering labor standards with a number of bad consequences, one of which manifested itself now as outbreaks of this virus.
Industrial efficiency is of course regarded as a good thing: we want to avoid unnecessary labour. Put a machine to work and save labour time to people. Divide tasks and increase productivity. Seen this way it its into the positivist idea of progress.
But... is efficiency an end in itself, or a means to other ends? If we want to save labour, it is because we assume that either:
1) the laborers will be happier doing something else, their time freed for other occupations.
2) the greater production will make more people happier.
1) has a problem that ought to be obvious by now: in a society of abundance that is nevertheless capitalist, most people have to work doing something in order to survive. This is a simple observation of the reality, not some theoretical consideration. Hence when say, 10 butchers go out of business and get replaced by one employee in a big meat factory, the 9 unemployed butchers don't get free time to enjoy their favorite pastimes, they are forced to find some other job.
Here I want to argue that in a modern society (where the basics of life are already easy to produce) the push towards greater efficiency more often than not leads to people being employed the same time but in unfulfilling jobs they dislike. Net result: unhappiness.
2) has a different problem, that of evaluating the "happiness" provided by the cheaper goods. Happiness is not easy to measure. Material abundance is certainly necessary first for survival, and then for the pursuit of several leisure activities. But how much is enough? How cheap should a product be, as cheap as possible always, always assuming that people will spend the money they save (in this example, the meat costs) in other things that make them happier?
Here, because happiness cannot be measured a shortcut is taken: efficiency is measured and it is always assumed that greater efficiency implies lower costs and necessarily greater happiness. Do people buy cheaper meat because of poverty forcing them to save on food? Or out of induced habit of pursuing lower prices always? When meat is so plentiful that a country exports a great portion of its production, is there a need for greater industrial efficiency in that industry, to provide for people's happiness in consuming the product?
I'm arguing no, there isn't. There is a point, and the fact that a country starts exporting a product can be seen as that point, where greater production is not translating to greater "happiness" from a product being produced.
I could make a rather lengthily econiomic argument about how in the absence of foreign trade labour and prices must always balance between products such that laborers can consume what they must of each irrespective of whether one takes more labour to produce than the others. But it's unnecessary. My question here is more direct: in industrial societies where there is such an abundance of goods that people spend their time semi-idly "consuming services", and selling services, what is the point of continuing to drive for higher industrial efficiency? Or even services efficiency?
Was just reading another piece of news, this one from Germany, about a very efficient businessman putting out the competition and "revolutionizing" an industry... by lowering labor standards with a number of bad consequences, one of which manifested itself now as outbreaks of this virus.
Industrial efficiency is of course regarded as a good thing: we want to avoid unnecessary labour. Put a machine to work and save labour time to people. Divide tasks and increase productivity. Seen this way it its into the positivist idea of progress.
But... is efficiency an end in itself, or a means to other ends? If we want to save labour, it is because we assume that either:
1) the laborers will be happier doing something else, their time freed for other occupations.
2) the greater production will make more people happier.
1) has a problem that ought to be obvious by now: in a society of abundance that is nevertheless capitalist, most people have to work doing something in order to survive. This is a simple observation of the reality, not some theoretical consideration. Hence when say, 10 butchers go out of business and get replaced by one employee in a big meat factory, the 9 unemployed butchers don't get free time to enjoy their favorite pastimes, they are forced to find some other job.
Here I want to argue that in a modern society (where the basics of life are already easy to produce) the push towards greater efficiency more often than not leads to people being employed the same time but in unfulfilling jobs they dislike. Net result: unhappiness.
2) has a different problem, that of evaluating the "happiness" provided by the cheaper goods. Happiness is not easy to measure. Material abundance is certainly necessary first for survival, and then for the pursuit of several leisure activities. But how much is enough? How cheap should a product be, as cheap as possible always, always assuming that people will spend the money they save (in this example, the meat costs) in other things that make them happier?
Here, because happiness cannot be measured a shortcut is taken: efficiency is measured and it is always assumed that greater efficiency implies lower costs and necessarily greater happiness. Do people buy cheaper meat because of poverty forcing them to save on food? Or out of induced habit of pursuing lower prices always? When meat is so plentiful that a country exports a great portion of its production, is there a need for greater industrial efficiency in that industry, to provide for people's happiness in consuming the product?
I'm arguing no, there isn't. There is a point, and the fact that a country starts exporting a product can be seen as that point, where greater production is not translating to greater "happiness" from a product being produced.
I could make a rather lengthily econiomic argument about how in the absence of foreign trade labour and prices must always balance between products such that laborers can consume what they must of each irrespective of whether one takes more labour to produce than the others. But it's unnecessary. My question here is more direct: in industrial societies where there is such an abundance of goods that people spend their time semi-idly "consuming services", and selling services, what is the point of continuing to drive for higher industrial efficiency? Or even services efficiency?
