Wednesday, May 25, 2005

I promised to clarify yesterday's post so I'll give it a shot. Apologies in advance if this is just as rambling or unclear.

It's flat-out expected that people put in well over 40 hours a week in most professional jobs (with anything above 40 usually unpaid). Why? Shouldn't productivity improvements mean less work to do? Innovation destroys that argument, as resources freed up from improved productivity have other uses to be put to. And that can forward individual and corporate wealth as well as the national/world economy. But what's the point of all of that wealth if it doesn't bring some kind of happiness or security to the people who make up these organizations?

That's what I think gets lost - that groups like companies and nations are intended to improve life for individuals, not as a sports team trying to win a game. The measurements of the game (GNP, productivity, Dow Jones) are supposed to approximate how life is for the people in the group; there's nothing good about their improvement once they're removed from what they're measuring.

Hmm, I might've gotten really obtuse with that one - let me stick in a sports analogy. If a basketball coach notices that better shooting percentage is the best predictor of which team will win, he might have every player take only shots they are certain they can make. So the shooting average might be 90%, but they would take so few shots that there's no way they could actually win a game. Productivity and all of these economic indicators are great, but when the indicators are the focus rather than the indicated, they lose their meaning.

I don't know exactly what I'd prescribed based on this, but I know that subordinating people's lives (i.e., their time) to these goals doesn't end up better for anyone. Definitely interested in any comments anyone has on this.
posted by Unknown 3:01 PM | 0 comments