Even In An Election Year, "Most Productive" Isn't "Hardest Working"

John McCain tried to get out of his recent gaffe on the "fundamentals" of the economy by repeating a common mantra for American politicians, describing American workers - the fundamentals themselves - as the "most productive" and "hardest working" in the world. New York Times columnist Bob Herbert, in a column reposted on the Obama campaign site, called Americans the "hardest-working people on the planet."

On this issue, American politicians are unanimous in their patriotic zeal, but please don't confuse rhetoric with reality. Compare the farmers in the images below, and ask yourself: which one is working harder, and which one is earning more? Then ask yourself which one is more productive.

Photos: Margery H. Freeman (www.learnnc.org); U.S. EPA.

I'm not an economist, but I know enough to understand that "productivity" as one of the economic "fundamentals" is not a measure of how "hard" people work. When economists say productivity rises in an economy, they usually mean that the value of goods produced per hour of work has increased. Sure, that could mean workers work harder, as in the case of speeding up an assembly line, but in the long run the bigger factor is the greater application of capital-intensive technology: fewer workers using more powerful machines. For example, on an individual basis, workers who produce software are more productive than those who produce hand-stitched carpets.

I hate to pick on economists (really), but maybe it takes a sociologist to observe the simple reality that, usually, the harder people work, the less money they make. I don't mean comparing two workers at the same job site -- in that case the one that works harder might actually make more money (just compare yourself to your boss....). I mean comparing groups of people, like those who plow fields on foot with large animals versus those who plow fields with giant combines. Or people who write blog posts while sitting in recliners versus those who make recliners.

It's not an insult to Americans to say they don't work harder than the rest of the world. But to say Americans do work harder than everyone else is an insult to the rest of the world.

Comments

[Philip N. Cohen - Huffpost Blogger]

One way to look at it is that hard work predicts high rewards within groups much better than between groups. So, within a particular group, such as American software programmers, those who work harder make more money. But between groups - say, between American software programmers and East African peanut farmers - how hard they work does not tell you who gets paid more.

[KillTheMessenger]

"So, within a particular group, such as American software programmers, those who work harder make more money."

Not really. Those who work for the right companies make more money. That's pretty independent of how much they actually work.

And between an American programmer and an Indian programmer the net gain can be far higher for the Indian programmer because he can purchase e.g. a home at far lower cost than his American colleague. At least it used to be that way. From what I have heard that gap is closing rather rapidly.

[ImmanuelGoldstein]

I've been saying this for years. Nobody ever got rich because they 'worked hard'. You get rich because of high returns on inputs. Or am I expected to believe that Bill Gates works a million times harder than, say a teacher with a net work of $100k?

[KillTheMessenger]

Where is the US teacher with a net worth of $100k? I thought they are all down the hole because they have to pay their education back while we keep cutting their salaries.

[JBS]

Net worth includes EVERYTHING you have ... your house, your car, stocks, bonds, coins in your piggy bank, any life insurance you might have, any savings, IRAs & 401Ks ... anything you could either cash in or convert to cash by selling it.

Heck, *MY* net worth is over 100K, and I don't get paid as much as teachers do.

[NessBird]

It may be true that on on average, the productivity of software programmers is greater than that of manual rugmakers, but (speaking as a programmer and manager) my experience is that if you remove the top 20% of programmers, you are left with a group whose average productivity is 0.

Again, I don't know exactly what the combine or the man with the yak are doing -- but there's a good chance the combine is part of an "effiicient" process of stripping the land of water and topsoil so thoroughly that it will be desert in a matter of a few decades...­.potential­ly leaving the land unoccupied for centuries. What's the net efficiency of this process?

To summarize: efficiency is a many-sided thing, especially in the technological world, which is full of unintended consequences...and the world of today is full of examples of people working harder to create more negative effects on the overall economy.

Which I suppose is orthogonal to your thesis...:)

[KillTheMessenger]

"Again, I don't know exactly what the combine or the man with the yak are doing -- but there's a good chance the combine is part of an "effiicient" process of stripping the land of water and topsoil so thoroughly that it will be desert in a matter of a few decades...­.potential­ly leaving the land unoccupied for centuries. What's the net efficiency of this process?"

That is an often made argument. But it has tiny teeth. The process you describe has actually been more often observed in poor countries in the tropics where desperate people without mechanized agriculture have done tremendous harm to their fragile environments. Many centuries of farming in the northern hemisphere have done relatively little harm and have actually led to increasingly better conditions (including better top soil in the best cared of areas). We have plenty of ways to work around the problems we create and because the northern climate (ice ages included) has deposited comparatively enormous layers of topsoil and mineral layers useful to agricultural use, our prospects of finding sustainable ways of growing food are excellent in comparison to most of the world.

This does not mean we can go on as we did for the last half century. But if there is one constant in agriculture it's that there is no constant.

A man with a waterbuffalo is not good agriculture. It's at best a nightmare for both the man and the animal. At worst it is torture.

[LeftRight]

"That is an often made argument. But it has tiny teeth. The process you describe has actually been more often observed in poor countries in the tropics where desperate people without mechanized agriculture have done tremendous harm to their fragile environments. Many centuries of farming in the northern hemisphere have done relatively little harm and have actually led to increasingly better conditions (including better top soil in the best cared of areas). We have plenty of ways to work around the problems we create and because the northern climate (ice ages included) has deposited comparatively enormous layers of topsoil and mineral layers useful to agricultural use, our prospects of finding sustainable ways of growing food are excellent in comparison to most of the world."

You're partly right in this paragraph. The fact of the matter is that you are right, the topsoil is more damaged by those not using mechanized farming techniques who don't know anything. However, in the case of the USA and Europe we spent centuries destroying our topsoil. We began to figure out how to FIX it after the dustbowl, during the Great Depression. And you're also right that we're DARN lucky that we had the Ice Ages to provide so much topsoil that we could afford to experiment....

[LeftRight]

Hey I admit that I don't have a hard working day. I ALSO am willing to admit that our economy is scu-rood!