WEBVTT NOTE 31. The Rate Buster 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:04.000 Chapter 31. The Rate Buster 2 00:00:04.000 --> 00:00:09.000 The scene is familiar from hundreds of movies featuring labor themes. 3 00:00:09.000 --> 00:00:16.000 The young, eager worker comes to the factory for the first time, determined to be a productive worker. 4 00:00:16.000 --> 00:00:23.000 In his enthusiasm, he happily produces more than the other workers who have been at the factory many years, 5 00:00:23.000 --> 00:00:26.000 and who are tired, stooped and arthritic. 6 00:00:26.000 --> 00:00:29.000 He is a rate buster. 7 00:00:29.000 --> 00:00:36.000 Not unnaturally antipathy springs up between our eager young worker and his senior colleagues. 8 00:00:36.000 --> 00:00:40.000 After all, they are cast in a slothful role. 9 00:00:40.000 --> 00:00:46.000 In contrast to his youthful exuberance, their production levels look meager indeed. 10 00:00:46.000 --> 00:00:54.000 As the young worker continues his accelerated work output, he becomes more and more alienated from the other workers. 11 00:00:54.000 --> 00:01:00.200 He becomes haughty. The older workers, for their part, try to treat him with compassion, 12 00:01:00.200 --> 00:01:04.880 but when he remains resistant, they subject him to a silent treatment, and commit him 13 00:01:04.880 --> 00:01:07.800 to a worker's purgatory. 14 00:01:07.800 --> 00:01:13.360 As the film continues, there occurs a climactic moment when the youthful rate-buster comes 15 00:01:13.360 --> 00:01:20.400 to his senses. This comes about in any number of ways, all dramatic. Perhaps he sees a sick 16 00:01:20.400 --> 00:01:26.480 Like old woman, an ex-factory worker, or a worker who has been injured in the factory. 17 00:01:26.480 --> 00:01:31.280 If the movie in question is avant-garde, the conversion can be sparked through the good 18 00:01:31.280 --> 00:01:36.320 offices of a cat grousing around in an overturned garbage can. 19 00:01:36.320 --> 00:01:41.800 Whatever the method, the young man does come to see the error of his ways. 20 00:01:41.800 --> 00:01:48.960 Then, in the last dramatic scene, which usually ends with all the workers, reformed rate-buster 21 00:01:48.960 --> 00:01:56.560 concluded, walking off arm in arm, a kindly old worker philosopher takes over center stage. 22 00:01:56.560 --> 00:02:01.940 He gives the young worker a five-minute course in labor history, from ancient Roman times 23 00:02:01.940 --> 00:02:08.200 down to the present, showing the constant perfidy of the bosses and proving beyond question 24 00:02:08.200 --> 00:02:11.760 that the only hope of the workers lies in solidarity. 25 00:02:11.760 --> 00:02:19.160 There has always been, he explains, a class struggle between the workers and the capitalists, 26 00:02:19.160 --> 00:02:24.840 with the workers continually struggling for decent wages and working conditions. 27 00:02:24.840 --> 00:02:30.840 The bosses are portrayed as always trying to pay the workers less than they deserve, 28 00:02:30.840 --> 00:02:36.040 pushing them as far as they can until they drop from exhaustion. 29 00:02:36.040 --> 00:02:41.420 Any worker who cooperates with the bosses in their unceasing, merciless and ruthless 30 00:02:41.420 --> 00:02:47.780 efforts to speed up the workers and to force them to increase their productivity levels 31 00:02:47.780 --> 00:02:50.780 is an enemy of the working class. 32 00:02:50.780 --> 00:02:55.900 With this summation by the worker-philosopher, the movie ends. 33 00:02:55.900 --> 00:03:01.620 This view of labor economics contains a tangle of fallacies which is interwoven with each 34 00:03:01.620 --> 00:03:10.340 Each Part Resting in Complex Ways on Other Parts However, there is one core fallacy. 35 00:03:10.340 --> 00:03:17.900 The core fallacy is the assumption that there is only so much work to be done in the world. 36 00:03:17.900 --> 00:03:23.680 Sometimes called the lump of labor fallacy, this economic view holds that the peoples 37 00:03:23.680 --> 00:03:29.160 of the world only require a limited amount of labor in their behalf. 38 00:03:29.160 --> 00:03:34.040 When this amount is surpassed, there will be no more work to be done, and hence there 39 00:03:34.040 --> 00:03:37.440 will be no more jobs for the workers. 40 00:03:37.440 --> 00:03:42.840 For those who hold this view, limiting the productivity of the eager young workers is 41 00:03:42.840 --> 00:03:45.320 of overriding importance. 42 00:03:45.320 --> 00:03:49.980 For if these workers work too hard, they will ruin things for everyone. 43 00:03:49.980 --> 00:03:55.560 By hogging up the limited amount of work which exists, they leave too little for everyone 44 00:03:55.560 --> 00:03:56.560 else. 45 00:03:56.560 --> 00:04:03.560 It is as if the amount of work that can be done resembles a pie of a fixed size. 46 00:04:03.560 --> 00:04:09.380 If some people take more than their share, everyone else will suffer with less. 47 00:04:09.380 --> 00:04:15.700 If this economic view of the world were correct, there would indeed be some justification for 48 00:04:15.700 --> 00:04:20.020 the theory espoused by the labor philosopher of the movie. 49 00:04:20.020 --> 00:04:26.020 There would be some justification for insisting that the younger and more active worker not 50 00:04:26.020 --> 00:04:32.740 take away more than his share of the pie. However, adherence to this theory has proved to be 51 00:04:32.740 --> 00:04:40.420 inefficient and uneconomic, with tragic results. This false view is based upon the assumption 52 00:04:40.420 --> 00:04:47.020 that people's desires for creature comforts, leisure, intellectual and aesthetic achievements 53 00:04:47.020 --> 00:04:53.500 have a sharp upward boundary which can be reached in a finite amount of time, and that 54 00:04:53.500 --> 00:04:57.700 And when it is reached, production must cease. 55 00:04:57.700 --> 00:05:00.780 Nothing could be further from the truth. 56 00:05:00.780 --> 00:05:06.940 To assume that human desires can be fully and finally satisfied is to assume that we 57 00:05:06.940 --> 00:05:13.340 can reach a point at which human perfection, material, intellectual and aesthetic, has 58 00:05:13.340 --> 00:05:15.380 been fully realized. 59 00:05:15.380 --> 00:05:17.780 Paradise, perhaps. 60 00:05:17.780 --> 00:05:22.940 If it were somehow achieved, then certainly there would be no unemployment problem, for 61 00:05:22.940 --> 00:05:25.380 for who would need a job. 62 00:05:25.380 --> 00:05:31.060 There is as much work to be done as there are unfulfilled desires. 63 00:05:31.060 --> 00:05:36.620 Since human desires are, for all practical purposes, limitless, the amount of work to 64 00:05:36.620 --> 00:05:39.340 be done is also limitless. 65 00:05:39.340 --> 00:05:46.460 Therefore, no matter how much work the eager young man completes, he cannot possibly exhaust 66 00:05:46.460 --> 00:05:51.860 or even make an appreciable dent in the amount of work to be done. 67 00:05:51.860 --> 00:05:57.540 If the eager worker does not take work away from others because there is a limitless amount 68 00:05:57.540 --> 00:06:01.980 of work to be done, what effect does he have? 69 00:06:01.980 --> 00:06:07.540 The effect of working harder and more efficiently is to increase production. 70 00:06:07.540 --> 00:06:13.340 By his energy and efficiency he increases the size of the pie, the pie that will then 71 00:06:13.340 --> 00:06:18.500 be shared among all those who took part in its production. 72 00:06:18.500 --> 00:06:23.120 The rate buster should also be considered from another vantage point. 73 00:06:23.120 --> 00:06:27.720 Consider the plight of a family shipwrecked on a tropical island. 74 00:06:27.720 --> 00:06:33.360 When the Swiss family Robinson sought refuge on an island, their store of belongings consisted 75 00:06:33.360 --> 00:06:36.680 only of what was salvaged from the ship. 76 00:06:36.680 --> 00:06:42.480 The meager supply of capital goods, plus their own laboring ability, will determine whether 77 00:06:42.480 --> 00:06:45.140 or not they survive. 78 00:06:45.140 --> 00:06:51.560 If we strip away all the novelistic superficialities, the economic situation that the Swiss family 79 00:06:51.560 --> 00:06:58.360 Robinson found itself in was facing an unending list of desires, while the means at their 80 00:06:58.360 --> 00:07:04.380 disposal for the satisfaction of these desires was extremely limited. 81 00:07:04.380 --> 00:07:09.740 If we suppose that all the members of the family set to work with the material resources 82 00:07:09.740 --> 00:07:22.060 What would be the effect of rape busting in their situation? 83 00:07:22.060 --> 00:07:26.820 Suppose one of the children suddenly becomes a rape buster and is able to produce twice 84 00:07:26.820 --> 00:07:30.660 as much per day as the other members of the family. 85 00:07:30.660 --> 00:07:36.140 Will this young punk be the ruination of the family, take work away from the other family 86 00:07:36.140 --> 00:07:42.060 members and wreak havoc upon the many society they have created. 87 00:07:42.060 --> 00:07:47.260 It is obvious that the Swiss family Robinson Rape Buster will not bring ruination upon 88 00:07:47.260 --> 00:07:48.720 his family. 89 00:07:48.720 --> 00:07:54.640 On the contrary, the Rape Buster will be seen as the hero he is, since there is no danger 90 00:07:54.640 --> 00:08:00.540 that his increased productivity would cause the family to run out of work. 91 00:08:00.540 --> 00:08:06.700 We have seen that for practical and even philosophical reasons, the wants and desires of the family 92 00:08:06.700 --> 00:08:08.400 were limitless. 93 00:08:08.400 --> 00:08:14.740 The family would hardly be in trouble even if several members were ratebusters. 94 00:08:14.740 --> 00:08:21.020 If the ratebusting family member can produce ten extra units of clothing, it may become 95 00:08:21.020 --> 00:08:26.180 possible for other members of the family to be relieved of their clothing manufacturing 96 00:08:26.180 --> 00:08:27.620 chores. 97 00:08:27.620 --> 00:08:30.400 New jobs will be assigned to them. 98 00:08:30.400 --> 00:08:37.040 There will be a sorting out period during which it is decided which jobs should be undertaken, 99 00:08:37.040 --> 00:08:42.540 but clearly the end result will be greater satisfaction for the family. 100 00:08:42.540 --> 00:08:49.760 In a modern complex economy, the results would be identical, though the process more complicated. 101 00:08:49.760 --> 00:08:54.000 The sorting out period, for example, may take some time. 102 00:08:54.000 --> 00:09:00.160 The point remains, however, that because of rate busting, society as a whole will move 103 00:09:00.160 --> 00:09:05.640 toward greater and greater satisfaction and prosperity. 104 00:09:05.640 --> 00:09:10.400 Another aspect of rate busting is the creation of new items. 105 00:09:10.400 --> 00:09:18.080 Thomas Edison, Isaac Newton, Wolfgang Mozart, J. S. Bach, Henry Ford, Jonas Salk, Albert 106 00:09:18.080 --> 00:09:25.440 Einstein, plus innumerable others, were the rate-busters of their day, not of quantity, 107 00:09:25.440 --> 00:09:27.200 but of quality. 108 00:09:27.200 --> 00:09:33.480 Each busted through what was considered by their society to be a normal rate and type 109 00:09:33.480 --> 00:09:35.600 of productivity. 110 00:09:35.600 --> 00:09:41.820 Yet each of these rate-busters contributed incalculably to our civilization. 111 00:09:41.820 --> 00:09:47.800 In addition to understanding rate-busting from the point of view of quantity and innovation, 112 00:09:47.800 --> 00:09:52.880 Rate busting should also be considered in terms of the new lives on this earth that 113 00:09:52.880 --> 00:09:55.040 it makes possible. 114 00:09:55.040 --> 00:10:00.800 The amount of human life which the earth can support is related to the level of productivity 115 00:10:00.800 --> 00:10:03.360 human beings achieve. 116 00:10:03.360 --> 00:10:09.120 If there are fewer rate busters, the number of lives this earth can support will be severely 117 00:10:09.120 --> 00:10:10.120 limited. 118 00:10:10.120 --> 00:10:16.920 If, however, the number of rate busters increases significantly in each respective field, the 119 00:10:16.920 --> 00:10:45.920 The conclusion, then, is that not only are ratebusters responsible for satisfying more of our desires than a slower, less efficient rate of production, they are also responsible for preserving the very lives of all those who would have to die were it not for the ratebusters enlarging the scope of human satisfactions. 120 00:10:45.920 --> 00:10:51.920 They provide the means with which the increasing global birth rate can be supported.