Comparative advantage

How much should you be able to do, and how well?

Our consultants haven’t had extensive holidays this year, but they have taken advantage of a couple of days off here and there to try some new recipes, including making chicken soup from scratch and flatbread by hand.  They do seem to enjoy doing as much of the process as possible, in contrast to the trend of this prepackaged age.  They’ve never actually added up the cost of homemade bread and compared it to store-bought versions, pretty sure that the time they put in wouldn’t amount to even minimum wage; on the other hand, one roast chicken provides quite a few meals.  That’s not the point.

An economist would disagree.  The whole idea of comparative advantage is that I should do what I do best, and everyone is better off that way.  It can be proven with simple examples as well as complicated figures.

An aristocrat would also disagree.  No true blue-blood would take pride in cooking his own meals, instead insisting on his fine judgement about what was set before him.  It’s no matter whether the peer is an English Duke or a Chinese Mandarin; certain tasks are just beneath him.  Indeed, there was a lively discussion in Early Modern Europe about which particular actions or occupations would produce a loss of noble status.

Our consultants, on the other hand, seem to hold with Robert Heinlein, science-fiction author of a former age and one with firm views:

“A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly.  Specialization is for insects.”

Probably this attitude, that one should be able to do any job that comes up, is a remnant of the American frontier.  As far as we now are from setting up log cabins in the wilderness, the idea remains somewhere in our subconscious.

[Some of our correspondents will take exception to Heinlein’s last sentence.  They are bee-keepers or those who study the insects, and have a high regard for the ability and adaptability of their subjects.  We suspect, though, that Robert would have added apiary skills to his list had it occurred to him.]

But neither the frontier-spirit nor the aristocrat-spirit is really practical nowadays (except for a few people in the woods and mountains, and others with great amounts of money).  None of our consultants raises his own chickens or grows his own wheat.  Neither do they employ valets to tie their ties and shine their shoes.  And in our compromised times, which spirit has the moral high ground: getting my own hands dirty, or taking one’s proper place in the scheme of things?

So we will make things from scratch when we can, and buy packaged food when the schedule or forgetfulness requires it.  But we draw the line at having someone else cut up an apple into small pieces and stuff it into a plastic jar, so we can pick out each with a plastic fork.