INCREASING EFFICIENCY FROM SPECIALIZATION YIELDS INCREASING INTERDEPENDENCE

The last 150 years of technological advance, combined with an economic system
that rewards proper use of capital, has resulted in a material standard of living for
U.S. citizens and first-world nations that is higher than that enjoyed by any people
previously on Earth. The “natural selection” forced by the competitive economy
and the accelerator of capital, attracted by the best opportunities, has caused best
technological practices to be advanced, benefiting many millions of people. The vast
majority of citizens in this society have access to food, healthcare, entertainment,
and educational opportunities beyond the reach of kings two centuries ago.
Competition has caused a relentless journey toward efficiency and its counterpart:
specialization. As we group together in ever-larger communities of specialized
individuals, we become much more dependent on each other for the basic sustenance
of our daily lives (food, fuel, etc). While our standard of living is far advanced over
any ever known, reliance upon the productive output of others is also increasing.
Such is the march of techonomics. The tangible sides of the organizational square
— energy, computation, and communication — progress at accelerating rates linked
inextricably to each other. What of the fourth side: community and its spirit? Will
community life progress in the midst of superlative material comfort?
In his classic study of successful individuals,
Think and Grow Rich,
Napoleon
Hill repeatedly observed that an individual’s greatest success was never reached
before a great failure.

Success had a price. Might that also be true for organizations
and societies — that the times of greatest progress follow times of greatest challenge?
Is there a collective will that contributes to the constitution of a people that is valuable
to nurture, protect, and preserve, or are the citizens of a nation simple cogs in a
scheme too large to influence? A superpower economy followed the Great Economic
Depression. A superpower military followed the great struggle of World War II. The
challenge from one man, John F. Kennedy, and fear of a competitor with a lead, the
Soviet Union, urged a nation to send a man to the moon and back by a definitive
date, and the nation responded.
Facing trials and overcoming them builds character in organizations as well as
individuals. The free market global economy is creating many trials in this time of
transition. It always has. The U.S. Civil War was a battle between the Agricultural
and the Industrial Ages at the same time it was a battle for states’ rights and freedom
of slaves. How to maintain high material standards of living for the masses will be
the key battle in the transition from the Industrial to the Virtual Age.
The enemies of healthy organizations, as well as of interdependent communities
of working people, are excessive protectionism and entitlement. Certainly, societies
have a moral obligation to protect their economic interests from being overpowered
by businesses or foreign interests. But the entitlement mindset is a great destroyer
of personal initiative and ultimately diminishes the ability of societies to effectively
participate in the operation of global free markets and their benefits.