Business: America the Inefficient

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firsthand how well or poorly the jobs are being done, and to find out what the customer really wants.

PRODUCT DESIGN: Companies could design products with an eye to easier repair. Motorola now produces color TV sets in which the basic parts are tucked into a pullout drawer; a serviceman can slide out the drawer and replace the faulty parts without hauling the whole set into his shop. In addition, manufacturers could spend more on improved quality and less on annual model changes. "Planned obsolescence," says Henry Ford II. "is out the window."

MANAGEMENT HABITS: Executives could surely re-examine some time-hallowed rules, with a view to eliminating make-work and Parkinson's first law ("Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion"). Though the work week has been growing shorter on the production line, today's managers are working harder—or at least longer —than those of any previous generation. Part of the problem is simply inept planning of time and operations (see box, page 78). Most executives should be allowed to set their own working hours instead of meeting fixed schedules, which often make for an inefficient use of time. Much executive work could be delegated to people on the lower rungs. There is considerable discussion of this in other fields: doctors are talking about turning over more of their basic chores to paramedics and nurses; judges are debating whether they could be freed to handle more cases if professional managers were appointed to handle administrative paper work in the courts.

NATIONAL PLANNING: There may have to be somewhat more Government planning and somewhat less emphasis on growth for growth's sake. In the area of transportation, for example, there is need for vast Government planning of new airport facilities and some curbing of competition. Is it logical or economical for four different airlines to fly half-empty planes at about the same time to the same place? On the other hand, transportation could be made much more efficient if the Government eased some of its old rules covering the shipment of goods. It might be wise to change the law forbidding any one company to use all modes of land, sea and air transport to move people or products.

These are only some possibilities, pointing in the direction of what might be done. Ultimately, though, the question is: How much efficiency does the U.S. really want?

The Counter-Cult

The answer is not as pat as it might seem. Though most Americans still accept efficiency as virtuous, there is a growing counter-cult that views efficiency as a dehumanizing, soul-devouring force. The cult began long ago, with Aldous Huxley and George Orwell. In their nightmare Utopias, Brave New World and 1984, they depicted future dictatorships made all the more oppressive by relentless efficiency. The counter-cult has strong expression in modern science fiction. Example: in This Perfect Day, Ira Levin, author of Rosemary's Baby, describes a futuristic society ruled by a gigantic computer, Uni, which calculates the most "efficient" assignments of careers for its many human subjects and, like a computerized dating service gone wild, even mates them.

The U.S., to put it mildly, is not yet faced with the problems of efficiency in the extreme. But it does have to contend with choices among