Linchpin_ Are You Indispensable_ - Seth Godin [17]
trait doesn't show up until after a few years of schooling.
Description of the Factory
"Factory" is a loaded term. It brings to mind car assembly lines or sweat-shops. I'm
talking about something much broader than that.
The Prudential Insurance offices in Newark are a factory, and so is the Department of
Motor Vehicles office near your house. Each McDonald's franchise is quite deliberately
set up as a factory, and so is the Goodwill distribution center that processes clothes to be
sent overseas to raise money for a good cause.
I define a factory as an organization that has figured it out, a place where people go to do
what they're told and earn a paycheck. Factories have been the backbone of our economy
for more than a century, and without them we wouldn't have the prosperity we have
today.
That doesn't mean you want to work in one.
You Get What You Focus On
Today, our leaders worry about things like global warming, security, limited resources,
and maintaining our infrastructure. And boomers worry about getting old and finding a
doctor they can afford.
A hundred years ago, our leaders worried about two things that seem truly archaic to us
now:
How to find enough factory workers; and
How to avoid overproduction.
FACTORY WORKERS
Factories convert natural resources into salable products. They turn iron ore into steel and
corn into Twinkies. A surplus of natural resources cuts your costs and increases your
productivity.
If human beings are a natural resource for factories, then your goal as a factory owner is
to get good ones, cheap. So captains of industry and government reorganized our society
around this goal.
Does this sound like a conspiracy theory? Where do you think engineering colleges and
nursing schools come from? Why else would we spend so much time and money creating
a nationwide system of schools and push so hard for a factory-like command and control
system for managing and producing students?
Yes, we need facts and rigor and systems. Yes, we need people to learn certain skills. But
this isn't enough. It's the preliminary first step.
The launch of universal (public and free) education was a profound change in the way
our society works, and it was a deliberate attempt to transform our culture. And it
worked. We trained millions of factory workers.
AVOIDING OVERPRODUCTION
A huge concern among capitalists at the turn of the last century was that as factories got
better and better at making stuff, there wouldn't be enough people to buy what they made.
The problem wasn't production; it was consumption. The typical household spent a tiny
fraction of what we do on everything in our budget.
In the 1890s, the typical teenager owned only a few items of clothing, consumed virtually
no media, and owned no cosmetics. Only the truly rich had rooms and rooms of
belongings they rarely used.
One of the wonderful by-products of universal education was the network effect that
supports consumer goods. Once one person in your class or your town had a car, others
needed one. Once someone added more rooms or had a second or third pair of shoes, you
needed them, too.
In the space of two generations, we created a consumer culture. There wasn't one; then
there was. Keeping up with the Joneses is not a genetic predisposition. It's an invented
need, and a recent one.
The sign in front of your local public school could say:
Maplemere Public School
WE TRAIN THE FACTORY WORKERS OF TOMORROW. OUR GRADUATES ARE
VERY GOOD AT FOLLOWING INSTRUCTIONS. AND WE TEACH THE POWER
OF CONSUMPTION AS AN AID FOR SOCIAL APPROVAL.
It's almost impossible to imagine a school with a sign that said:
"We teach people to take initiative and become remarkable artists, to question the status
quo, and to interact with transparency. And our graduates understand that consumption is
not the answer to social problems."
And yet that might be exactly what we need.
From Superhero to Mediocreman (and Back Again)
Kids can do anything (except fly, which they really