Fact Box

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Kratylus Automates His Urnworks

Tolly Kizilos

KALLIAS: Here comes Nikias, troubled as usual about some social injustice or other.
SOCRATES: Good morning, Nikias. Isn't it a bit early in the day to be looking so troubled?
NIKIAS: Good morning, my friends, if you can call good a morning on which you lose your job.
IPPONIKOS: Sit down, Nikias, and tell us what happened. Remember what Socrates always says: "Nothing bad in this world is uncontaminated by good."
NIKIAS: I know what Socrates says, but it doesn't make sense to me just now. I don't know what will happen. I showed up for work at Kratylus's urnworks this morning, as I've done for three years, and he told me and seven others that we were no longer needed. He's installed some new foot-operated potter's wheels with pulleys, so he doesn't need as many people to do the work. Just like that, I'm unemployed.
KALLIAS: It wasn't all that sudden, though, was it, Nikias? I heard Kratylus almost a month ago talking openly at the agora about the new wheels he was buying from Corinth. It was no secret that he was going to install them to raise productivity. He had to do it, he told me, or he'd go out of business. I realize that you and a few others will suffer for a while, but he has to increase the productivity of his business or everyone working for him could end up without a job. And if he and others don't become more productive, Athens itself will take a back seat to Corinth and other cities, and all its citizens will suffer the consequences.
NIKIAS: We knew about it, all right, but we were hoping there would be other jobs we could do. Is it more productive to have people out of work, doing nothing, than to have them gainfully employed? How can the city's productivity grow if a lot of people are out of work? As far as I'm concerned, that kind of narrow-minded productivity increase helps no one but Kratylus; it just feeds his greed.
KALLIAS: Come now, Nikias; you can't possibly mean that! Productivity gains, no matter where, benefit everyone in the long run. You'll find another job soon, or Kratylus's business will expand and he'll need more workers to operate the faster wheels.
SOCRATES: Is productivity then both good and evil? Is it both the requirement for the workers' prosperity and the cause of their misfortunes?
IPPONIKOS: Ah, Socrates, how cleverly you always pose your questions—so pregnant with answers of your choosing! Why don't you go on and say that this is impossible, therefore productivity is either good or evil and, consequently, only one of our friends here can be right?
SOCRATES: Because, my dear Ipponikos, there is always a chance that a pregnant question will deliver a revealing answer. I find that I always discover new things as I grow older.
KALLIAS: Well, I'm always suspicious about ambiguous concepts. Productivity is either good or evil, and only one of us is right. Otherwise the concept is meaningless.
IPPONIKOS: People can always stretch the meaning of words enough to understand and agree with each other. All it takes is a common culture and goodwill.
KALLIAS: You aren't so bad at clever arguments yourself, Ipponikos. You imply that if we can't understand and agree with each other, it doesn't mean that some of us are wrong but that some are barbarians or rascals, or both. But perhaps you didn't mean that?
NIKIAS: If this is going to be a battle of wits, count me out.
SOCRATES: Nikias is right. Let's abandon generalities, which make philosophy irrelevant, and search for the meaning of productivity. Perhaps productivity is such an elusive concept that we can reach only a partial understanding of it, which, however, is acceptable to all of us. Let us be hopeful.
IPPONIKOS: With an ideologue like Kallias in the discussion, I'm afraid it'll be a waste of time.
NIKIAS: So is what we're doing right now. Let's discuss the issue instead of arguing over trivia.
KALLIAS: I'll tell you what productivity is, Socrates, or at least what it means to me—take it as you like. It's not such a difficult concept. It's simply the ratio of useful work output for a given valuable input. The higher the output for the same input, the higher the productivity is. Take, for example, Kratylus's urnworks. I know something about his business because occasionally he asks for my opinion. Kratylus produces about 200 urns a day and used to employ about 20 workers. If he can produce the same number of urns with half the work force, then he doubles his shop's productivity. It's as simple as that.
IPPONIKOS: It's so simple, it's idiotic. Whose productivity has he increased? Nikias isn't productive anymore. He worked hard and still got laid off. Kratylus's productivity gain is Nikias's productivity loss.
NIKIAS: More productivity for Kratylus means more satisfaction of his greed.
KALLIAS: I don't understand what's happening to us. If we are here to denigrate Kratylus, I want no part of it.
SOCRATES: The path to the truth is often obscured by throny bushes, Kallias.
KALLIAS: I know it's hard to be objective right now, but the facts are irrefutable. When you were working for Kratylus—I'm sure very hard—you weren't very productive because you were using a slow wheel to shape the urns. You were paid wages to produce something that cost so much it couldn't be sold easily. Activity isn't productivity, Nikias. What's needed is more output for a given input; what's needed is more drachmas from the sale of urns per drachma of wages. Now you produce nothing, but your wages are also nothing; so, it makes no sense to talk about your productivity. Only when you get paid to produce something of value, that is, when there's an input and an output, can we talk meaningfully about productivity.
IPPONIKOS: This input-output stuff may be useful when talking about machines or oxen, but it makes no sense when we're discussing human beings. Productivity means productive activity. Human beings can be very productive even when they're supported by handouts. Why, only two weeks ago I heard that the geometer Diomedes, a pauper, mind you, if there ever was one, invented an instrument for measuring angles he calls a theodolite. I heard Telemachus say it will save thousands of workdays for his surveying crew when they're setting the boundaries of farmers' fields all around Attica. Diomedes received no wages—no input, as you would say, Kallias—but does that mean we can't talk about his productivity? He is productive, very productive.
KALLIAS: Of course he is, my dear Ipponikos. Your example of Diomedes is precisely what I've been looking for to make my point. Maximum output with minimum possible input yields the highest productivity.
NIKIAS: So, productivity according to you is using up people. Humanity subordinated to the goddess of productivity. Perhaps you'd like to add another goddess to the 12 Olympians? It wouldn't surprise me.
KALLIAS: I said minimum possible input, not minimum input. Possible is the essential ... 
IPPONIKOS: I don't understand why you keep using inputs and outputs when you talk about human beings, Kallias. We could never define such things for humans, capable of an infinite variety and an infinite number of possible inputs and outputs, none of them exactly predictable. No man can be bound by defining him in terms of input and output. "Man is the measure of all things," as Protagoras said—he cannot himself be measured.
NIKIAS: But to Kratylus and others who own shops, Ipponikos, there's little difference among men, beasts, or machines. A person at work is told exactly what input he'll have (that is, what wages he'll be paid), exactly what he has to do, and what he's expected to produce. That's what happens when you work for someone else; you're dehumanized.
KALLIAS: You're too angry to contribute to this discussion, Nikias.
IPPONIKOS: Since when has anger been proven to be an obstacle in the search for truth?
SOCRATES: Nikias agrees with you, Ipponikos, that man is fundamentally different from the machine, and one of the reasons is that only machines have finite and measurable inputs and outputs by design.
IPPONIKOS: It's even more fundamental than that: Kallias talks about wages as inputs, but that's so narrow-minded it's absurd. People can get more than wages for doing their jobs; they can get satisfaction, learning, enjoyment; they can be frightened or encouraged by what happens around them; they can be made to feel stronger or weaker by the actions of others. Their productive activity is often the result of all these impressions, shaped by thinking, feeling, and judgment. And as for their output, sometimes it's so unpredictable as to instill awe, admiration, and delight.
KALLIAS: I'm really surprised by your views, Ipponikos. It seems that Protagoras and the other sophists have clouded your thoughts.
IPPONIKOS: I can do without your sarcasm, Kallias. Do me the courtesy of treating me like a person who can think for himself. If you have something to say about my views, say it without insinuations.
KALLIAS: I will, my friend, I most certainly will. You are espousing a very irresponsible view and I couldn't possibly avoid commenting on it. According to you, a workshop owner should hire workers and pay them wages, but demand nothing specific of them. Some of them may want to loaf; others may decide to take up playwriting or singing instead of making urns, and some of them may even choose to work and produce urns once in a while. Now and then, perhaps, a worker will invent a new tool that improves the quality of urns or the productivity of the shop, but there will be no guarantees. And the wages have to keep coming steadily, guaranteed. Is this a responsible way to run a business? Could the workshop owner entrust his future to the whims of his workers? The workers have no stake in the business and, if the shop went broke, they could leave at a moment's notice to take jobs elsewhere. And, what about those who really work hard to produce urns and urns alone? Wouldn't this irresponsible approach be unfair to them?
IPPONIKOS: You talk as if the workers want to loaf and behave irresponsibly toward the owner and their fellow workers. You don't trust them.
KALLIAS: Not everyone is responsible and trustworthy.
IPPONIKOS: Perhaps not. But if the owner trusts his people and rewards them fairly, I believe that the workers would strive to do their best for the business. Some will be less productive than others, but the productivity of the whole place will be higher when people feel free to use all their talents and skills. As for fairness, the workers themselves will set standards and require that everyone pull his weight.
SOCRATES: I hear a lot of views being expressed, but no conclusions. If this were a workshop, its productivity would be very low, and some of us, I fear, would have to be replaced by more productive philosophers, probably from Sparta. Can't we first agree on what productivity means?
KALLIAS: It's apparent to me, Socrates, that this isn't possible with Ipponikos and Nikias present. If you and I were alone, we could be more productive than the whole city of Sparta discussing the issue.
SOCRATES: You and I, Kallias, might come up with conclusions very fast, but the quality of our conclusions might not be as high as it can be with our friends here contributing their ideas.

From Harvard Business Review May / June 1984