Is there such a thing as too much productivity?

That's the question this writer is addressing:

http://hr.toolbox.com/blogs/connection-conversation-community/is-there-such-a-thing-as-too-much-productivity-46507?reftrk=no

The QWERTY typewriter may be an example of when there was:

http://home.earthlink.net/~dcrehr/whyqwert.html

A sizable percentage of the human species may go to bed hungry every night. But that doesn't mean farmers can't be too productive:

http://aei.pitt.edu/30085/

Those who oppose progress because they fear the impacts of new technologies are usually called Luddites or Neo-Luddites The term has negative connotations, but they have often had good points.

Here's a site that contends that technology is always a job creator:
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_the_affect_of_technology_on_job_loss_and_job_creation

And here's one that says the opposite:
http://charlestaggart.wordpress.com/2010/01/19/age-of-job-creation-technology-killing-jobs/

Kurt Vonnegut's first novel lampooned technology and postulated a future when few of us would have meaningful jobs:

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Of course, if the means of production, no matter how sophisticated, were distributed more fairly across the population, instead of being concentrated in ever fewer greedier hands, maybe some ideal society could be realized in which the 'bots did the work, we all shared the profits... and used our leisure time to pursue higher human potential.

But then we'd probably all just sit on our ever fattening butts and watch more Charlie Sheen sit coms, Opra (or is she gone now?), and Casey Anthony (or --- Oh, my God! --- was she acquitted?).

I've wondered about these things for a long time:

Can Nation Of Couch Potatoes Compete In Marketplace?
May 02, 1990|BY JAMES O. CASTAGNERA

The term "couch potato" has entered the language. It needs no further definition. But in a speech last summer in Philadelphia, PBS's Robert McNeil used a more venerable term: hedonist. Was he on the mark?

In November, the Institute for Aerobic Research released a report contending that "fewer than 10 percent of Americans over 18 . . . exercise vigorously and regularly." Spud City!

The Japanese have the same view of us. In a controversial manuscript, Sony Chairman Akio Morita and former Transport Minister Shintaro Ishihara agree ''the U.S. is doomed as a superpower because of economic self-indulgence, indiscipline and executive greed . . . The time will never again come when America will regain its strength in industry."
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It ain't a pretty picture - but neither is the solution in vogue. Witness the words of President John Brodie of United Paperworkers Local 448 in Chester: "What the company wants is for us to work like the Japanese. Everybody . . . do jumpingjacks in the morning and kiss each other when they go home . . . (W)ork as a team, rat on each other, and lose control of your destiny. That (won't) work in this country."

I go along with Brodie up to a point. Notwithstanding that Japanese now own the lion's share of Rockefeller Center and are operating auto plants in this country, we Yanks can't change our national character overnight.

This is not to say we couldn't profit (quite literally) from a renewed spirit of industriousness and cooperation. But the American workforce won't swallow the Japanese approach.

If we are a little lazy, rather wasteful, a bit laidback (or even resentful) about the ground we've lost in the world market - isn't it mostly due to what we're used to?

This goes a long way toward explaining why our union leaders aren't recommending jumpingjacks and bunny hugs to their members too.

Union strength has waned from a peak of perhaps 35 percent of the workforce in the '50s to less than 20 percent. But the confrontational approach hasn't changed much, as Congress and the courts create new employee causes of action, keeping pace (if not spearheading) with our increasingly litigious legal system.

Is our nation in trouble? Hell, yes! Follow the course of Spain, Austria- Hungary, England and now the U.S. The 'American Century' may be as big an

illusion as the Thousand-Year Reich.

What to do? Some have started down the long road: Companies have regained their competive edge. I suppose Chrysler's comeback was and will remain the classic example.