It Will be Ugly

For most of his life my father was lucky. He scrounged his way through college in the '30's, working constantly. He said he couldn't comprehend how some of his classmates didn't have to work.

He was in ROTC, naturally--anything to get by. He worked for a bookie. He worked at Frigidaire on a crosscut saw when refrigerators were wooden iceboxes with compressors stuck on top.

Graduating in '39 he was already in the army when the war started, in ordnance, having requested a transfer there because it made more sense for an engineer than the infantry, or so he said. 

Anyway, he was stationed at a bomb depot near Gallup, New Mexico, somewhat in charge of operations. He instituted games and competitions for the Navajo workers and productivity was high.

Towards the end of the war, probably around or after V-E Day, he was transferred to a depot near Tooele, Utah, where they were working 24/7, with no holidays, and getting further behind. 

There was a set of buildings and the rail-yard. The guys worked back and forth between them, with two short breaks and a longer one in the middle of their shift. My father suggested a deal.

If they worked six hours nonstop at the tracks and very hard he would pay them for eight. And he would give them a weekend off if they caught up. Productivity soared and they caught up. 

Woohoo! The workers loved it. The work went by quickly. Some got second jobs. My father had stumbled into something he could do well. That was his luck. He ended the war a lieutenant-colonel.

So this was his thing, for the rest of his life, to try to create productivity out of nowhere through empathetic intelligence and cooperation in the workplace. This is, on average, the story of America.

That and being awash in natural resources. On balance we have been practical people and committed to a better society for everyone. But now we are doing the reverse of what my father did.

We are replacing good systems with bad and ensuring that everyone loses. Those responsible reject the idea of a "society," a common entity, entirely and rationalize their selfishness as individualism.

They can get away with their wasteful ways only because earlier generations of Americans have lived better lives than the new guys are able, more responsible and productive and fair. There's a lag.

Our society is not a reflection of what we are, pigs and idiots, but a decent thing only because of the inheritance we now burn through. When the reality catches up with us it is going to be ugly.