Michael
Apr 5th 2009, 09:54 AM
I'm putting this into this section because I believe this topic impacts our environment in a big way.
Want to go large on housing, schools, prisons, hospitals or simply pricetags? Bad idea - keeping a lid on size is the way to go, says Katharine Whitehorn.
Article (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/7914698.stm)
I agree completely. There definitely are some serious losses in social efficiency when we use 'economies of scale' to build institutions ever larger.
I've long held that this is apparent with government in general. It seems the same things holds true with schools, hospitals and prisons. I'd venture to say the same holds true with corporations and banks as well.
Fact is, the example of the school is the most persuasive. In a small school of a couple hundred students, the principal is quite likely to know just about every student by name, or at least recognize their faces. Not so when the school is over 1000 students. Thus, for students, there is a certain anonyminity that is available in a larger school that is not avialable in a smaller school. This allows that student greater latitude for trouble-making, truancy and/or other problems without being noticed.
Smaller schools impose a greater 'risk of being caught' to this type of behaviour (and this logically tends to reduce it).
I think our 'resident anthropologist' would agree that the ability of humans to deal with larger and larger numbers of other people is very, very difficult. Humans just tend to relate better to smaller numbers and smaller scales and the evidence for this is very strong.
Economies of scale are purely financial - these economies of scale appear to work in reverse for social effectiveness. The problem is that our systems of governmental decision making is heavily weighted in favor of economies of scale (to the detriment of social effectiveness).
Want to go large on housing, schools, prisons, hospitals or simply pricetags? Bad idea - keeping a lid on size is the way to go, says Katharine Whitehorn.
Article (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/7914698.stm)
I agree completely. There definitely are some serious losses in social efficiency when we use 'economies of scale' to build institutions ever larger.
I've long held that this is apparent with government in general. It seems the same things holds true with schools, hospitals and prisons. I'd venture to say the same holds true with corporations and banks as well.
Fact is, the example of the school is the most persuasive. In a small school of a couple hundred students, the principal is quite likely to know just about every student by name, or at least recognize their faces. Not so when the school is over 1000 students. Thus, for students, there is a certain anonyminity that is available in a larger school that is not avialable in a smaller school. This allows that student greater latitude for trouble-making, truancy and/or other problems without being noticed.
Smaller schools impose a greater 'risk of being caught' to this type of behaviour (and this logically tends to reduce it).
I think our 'resident anthropologist' would agree that the ability of humans to deal with larger and larger numbers of other people is very, very difficult. Humans just tend to relate better to smaller numbers and smaller scales and the evidence for this is very strong.
Economies of scale are purely financial - these economies of scale appear to work in reverse for social effectiveness. The problem is that our systems of governmental decision making is heavily weighted in favor of economies of scale (to the detriment of social effectiveness).