... of efficiency, its sacrificing to a false idol of efficiency ... a partial, static, efficiency, ignoring externalized costs and ignoring dynamic efficiency gains.

Following the static efficiency argument, Japan would never have invested in steel making and shipbuilding after the end of WWII, but if they had not, they would have sacrificed dynamic efficiency gains far in excess of the static efficiency gains that they did sacrifice, so in terms of "efficiency", what was claimed by most of their US advisers to be the inefficient choice (Deming gets an honourable mention here, he just wanted to make efficiently whatever it was decided should be made) turned out to be the efficient one.


I've been accused of being a Marxist, yet while Harpo's my favourite, it's Groucho I'm always quoting. Odd, that.