Saving labor

Saving saves -- sometimes. But by and large when you save one way you lose another way. There is always a trade-off, some obvious, some hidden.

Merchandise that goes on sale, touted as a saving, we all know, is a gimmick for leading gullible consumers to buy what they don't really need by suggesting that they are saving while the merchant succeeds in selling more for profit. Overstock is seemingly a convincing rationale for putting items on sale but it only says that they got overstocked because they didn't sell and most likely for good reasons.

Saving money for rainy days is wise; but saving is a folly when it is achieved at the expense of necessities, or even of occasional forays into treats and sprees.

But the greatest folly of all is saving labor.

The idea is, of course, to reduce physical work, thus making time for credibly nobler activities. So, in the modern era, mechanical, and later motorized, contraptions of all kinds came to be invented for human benefit on the assumption that the use of elbow grease is lowly, wasteful, and despicable. American ingenuity, in particular, thrived, and the higher level of living was measured by the prevailing reliance on machines, from the power mower to the electric shaver. We all rely on them, to which we became sometimes enslaved. We held such faith in the virtue of saving labor that we rarely asked where the precious saved time and labor have been reapplied. Where does the labor saved in brushing teeth electrically rather than manually go, I ask.

Time is a fixed resource, and saving time by saving labor should create opportunities for more elevated pursuits, and undoubtedly it does -- to a degree. But I find it curious that many engage in physical labor by jogging, doing gym exercises, and playing sports, in order to recuperate the labor nominally saved but apparently lost by our reliance on power appliances and tools.

Time is money, we are told. But like money, time saved is costly. Only in recent years, green Americans are being awakened to the consumption of enormous energy in all time- and labor-saving devices. The wise advice today is "walk, don't ride," "use your hands and arms," and "go mechanical rather than electric". Those of us who grew up in "underdeveloped" conditions in the old countries had learned long ago to take for granted that work is work and learned to value the art and pleasure of using our body efficiently.

If the drive for a greener world succeeds, it will be a revolutionary turn for the long established American lifestyle. But, alas, the less developed countries will be catching up in the labor-saving frenzy American way.