The search for better, for more competent men, from the presidents of our great companies down to our household servants, was never more vigorous than it is now. And more than ever before is the demand for competent men in excess of the supply.
— from ‘The Principles of Scientific Management’ by Frederick W. Taylor, 1915.
I see where some left-wing columnists are claiming that the American economy is doing great. Like this comment, from one of my favorite left-wing columnists, Heather Cox Richardson:
One of the biggest stories of 2023 is that the U.S. economy grew faster than any other economy in the Group of 7 nations, made up of democratic countries with the world’s largest advanced economies. By a lot. The International Monetary Fund yesterday reported that the U.S. gross domestic product — the way countries estimate their productivity — grew by 2.5%, significantly higher than the GDP of the next country on the list: Japan, at 1.9%.
IMF economists predict U.S. growth next year of 2.1%, again, higher than all the other G7 countries. The Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta projects growth of 4.2% in the first quarter of 2024.
She wouldn’t want to use me, personally, as an example of increased productivity, however. My productivity hasn’t changed noticeably since 1982. And I certainly don’t expect it to grow by 4.2% in the first quarter of 2024, regardless of what the Federal Reserve Bank might think.
Of course, this assumes that I even know what “productivity” means.
On the most basic level, it probably has something to do with producing stuff. If I were a chicken, for example, and I were laying one egg per day, and then — for some unknown reason — I started laying two eggs per day, an economist could say my “productivity” had increased by 100%.
I’m not a chicken, of course, and I feel quite satisfied with writing one humor column per day. Every now and then, I manage two columns in a single day. But there are other times when I might go two or three days without writing anything at all.
I suppose chickens go through something similar.
Two chickens are talking:
“Did you lay any eggs today, Mildred?”
“Nope. Not a one. Haven’t laid an egg for a couple of days now.”
“You better be careful. Sally stopped laying eggs back in October, and she wound up in a stew pot.”
“Yeah, I heard about that. She was a nice girl. But don’t worry… I’m planning to go back on the assembly line tomorrow. Just needed a break.”
“I know what you mean.”
“But let’s be real. If we start laying two eggs a day, then the owners are going to start expecting two eggs a day. I mean, who can keep up that kind of pace? We’d be digging our own graves. We have to slack off, sometimes. For our own survival.”
“So true.”
I don’t know if chickens think of their existence as an assembly line, or if they base their self-worth on “productivity”. But I know some humans feel that way.
For which we can point to Frederick W. Taylor as the primary villain. Back in 1915, he wrote a book titled The Principles of Scientific Management. He was distressed by the lack of productivity coming from American factories, and he blamed the deficiency on several factors. First of all, factory managers were hiring any old person off the street, without determining if they were actually suitable for the job. He wanted job interviews to be ‘scientific’.
But the main obstacle in American factories was, in Taylor’s view, the problem of ‘soldiering’ — employees doing as little work as possible, in cooperation with other employees who were also doing as little as possible. Slacking. Laying one egg, when they are perfectly capable of laying two eggs.
To make America great again, Taylor argued, factory managers needed to institute scientific management techniques, and get two eggs a day out of their workers.
When I first moved to Pagosa Springs, people talked about this thing called, “Pagosa time.” Workers and contractors showing up late for work, or maybe not at all.
People smiled, generally, when talking about “Pagosa time”, even when they found the cultural practice frustrating. It was one of those crazy quirks that made life in Pagosa into an ongoing adventure in unfulfilled expectations.
Bacon, without the eggs.
I’m not sure if today’s column was the bacon, or the eggs. Maybe neither?
Underrated writer Louis Cannon grew up in the vast American West, although his ex-wife, given the slightest opportunity, will deny that he ever grew up at all.