The Danger of Too Much Efficiency - NYTimes.com - 2 views
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Each of these developments has made it easier to do one’s business without wasted time and energy — without friction. Each has made economic transactions quicker and more efficient. That’s obviously good, and that’s what Bain Capital tries to do in the companies it buys. You may employ a lazy brother-in-law who is not earning his keep. If you try to do something about it, you may encounter enormous friction — from your spouse. But if Bain buys you out, it won’t have any trouble at all getting rid of your brother-in-law and replacing him with someone more productive. This is what “creative destruction” is all about.
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These are all situations in which a little friction to slow us down would have enabled both institutions and individuals to make better decisions. And in the case of individuals, there is the added bonus that using cash more and credit less would have made it apparent sooner just how much the “booming ’90s” had left the middle class behind. Credit hid the ever-shrinking purchasing power of the middle class from view.
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e. If credit card companies weren’t allowed to charge outrageous interest, perhaps not everyone with a pulse would be offered credit cards. And if people had to pay with cash, rather than plastic, they might keep their hands in their pockets just a little bit longer.
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What do you think of his argument?
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How interesting! And persuasive, too. However, it also defies easy integration into the simplistic models that most of us use as foundations for our thinking about society, and particularly, in our normative thinking ("What *should* we do?"). So I expect that 3% of readers will share my initial intellectual appreciation of the argument, but 97% of those who do will quickly forget it.