> Incidentally, Michael Albert has an interesting counterpoint:
> "Does the word induce a bit of nausea in some of you? It does in
> me. But we need to get over that, because efficiency really means
> seeking to attain our aims and in doing so not wasting things we
> value. We should all therefore favor efficiency. The alternative
> to favoring efficiency is to favor either not attaining our aims,
> or to favor wasting things that we value.
But this ignores the fact that efficiency in some domains can block us from obtaining our aims in other domains. We can't just simply say "we should be efficient"; rather, we have to ask "What are the exogenous costs of this form of efficiency in other domains of social life? Based on our values, is this a reasonable trade-off?" --A couple of examples.
1. Bureaucracy. As Weber pointed out all those years ago, large formal organizations with a bureaucratic structure are efficient. It's difficult to imagine how large organizations like school systems, corporations, and government agencies could accomplish their tasks if they did not have the basic characteristics of a bureaucracy (specialized jobs, record keeping, formal rules and regulations). From Albert's point of view, given that bureaucracy is efficient (common sense diatribes about bureaucracy notwithstanding), we should "favor" bureaucratic organizations. However, this is too simplistic. What are the other social costs of bureaucracies? For instance, hierarchy is another basic characteristic of bureaucracies, and this allows a relatively small number of leaders in different organizations to collude, make decisions in their mutual benefit, and directly or indirectly take advantage of the rest of us (e.g., Halliburton, Enron, Wal-mart). So we can't just ask "what kind of organization is most efficient?". Rather, we need to ask "What effects does this efficient organization have on other aspects of social life? Is the efficiency worth the costs?"
2. Markets. Even as a stalwart Marxist, I will begrudingly admit that markets can be (but are not always!) an efficient means of allocating goods and services. However, we again need to ask "What are the exogenous social effects of this type of efficiency? In what domains of social life are markets appropriate, given these social effects?" For instance, should we have a market for health care in our society? With a true market based system, we may have some "market discipline" and efficiency in a narrow sense, but we are also certain to have many people without health care, and this will lead to significant costs for society as a whole (e.g., lost productivity, proliferation of disease, increase social conflict between haves and have nots). Thus it's not simply a matter of accepting markets tout court; we need to decide in what specific domains the efficiencies that markets provide are worth the social costs. --And this leads us inexorably back to decisions based on shared morals and values.
Miles