Efficiency is overrated

One of the unquestioned assumptions of our culture is that efficient is better. It seems like a fairly self-evident proposition (perhaps because it's been drilled into us so many times); after all, who is for inefficiency? But it's not always a good thing.

On a personal level, it's pretty easy to understand that efficiency should not be the highest goal. Being perfectly efficient means not stopping to smell the flowers or not having time for five minutes of chit-chat, because you've got something more productive already planned.

So no one really lives their lives perfectly efficiently, nor should they. But on a societal level, people are more willing to take for granted that we should strive after efficiency as much as possible. It's the reigning orthodoxy of our time, underlying support for free trade and globalization.

As far as efficiency goes, I don't think there's much doubt that if you want to maximize the number of computers produced, or dishwashers, or crappy toys or what have you, then the more free trade and globalization the better. Our society has become ever more efficient in this sense of late, using resources to their maximum potential and it is increasingly inter-linked.

There is a tradeoff however. By using resources near their maximum potential, it means there aren't many left over that can be used if something unforeseen happens. And increased efficiency due to interlinked globalized networks has left us vulnerable if any parts of those networks fail. Our set-up maximizes current production by leaving us no reserve capacity.

Efficiency eliminates redundancies. But redundancies serve a useful purpose as backup mechanisms. As an example, we have two of many of our useful organs. If part of us fails, we can still function.

As a society however, we've gotten rid of most of these useful but burdensome safeguards. We have created a productive but fragile society.

The system works alright as long as everything stays connected, and nothing unforeseen surprises us. But we're now much less able to do without these connections than in the past, and we're worse at not being surprised.




N.B.: One problem with arguing against efficiency is that it's hard to do so in a systematic way. If the goal is maximum efficiency, then everything is clear. You find inefficiencies, and proceed to eliminate them. That's what we've been trying to do for the past few decades. But if your goal is "a fair bit of efficiency, but not so much as to leave us vulnerable to disaster if there is a disruption"....then it's not so clear precisely what you should aim for. So I can describe the problem, but I can't say precisely what to do about it.