The Cult of Efficiency.

Janice Gross Stein Toronto: Anansi Press

This book is the print form of the CBC's Massey Lecture for 2001. The series has been running since 1961 and is probably one of the finest examples in the English-speaking world of the desperate struggle to push the radio diet beyond the moronic.

As the title of the book indicates, Janice Gross Stein's focus is on what she believes has become the cult of efficiency. The author defines a cult as something that becomes an end in itself, without reference to its larger purpose. For Stein, we in the post-industrial world have made efficiency into a cult. We do not ask "efficient at what?" Efficiency, she argues, is simply a way of doing things, a means to an end but, if we do not understand what the end is, then we are just babbling. Thus, it has simply become an argument for doing things, whatever those things may be, in a way that costs less.

The author's discussion of efficiency, what it is and is not, takes place within the world of public goods, a world in which public goods are more and more delivered through public market mechanisms, as governments move more towards `steering' than `rowing'. In what are probably the most interesting discussions in the book, the author points out that the useful argument can no longer be between public sector boosters and market boosters, a mix is what seems to work best and, she argues, not because it is more `efficient' (however one measures that) but because the system of delivery becomes more accountable.

Those organizations that compete to deliver the public good may drive the price of delivery down (debatable) but what Stein argues is not debatable is that such a system becomes more accountable to the public. Why? Because governments become more involved in ensuring that the service is delivered in a way that is most effective, through monitoring the delivery closely; because the services are no longer provided by a monopoly that operates largely behind closed doors, as it did in the days when governments designed programs, delivered them and monitored them. Certainly, after reading this book, it helps in an understanding of why all-out socialism has always been so disastrous, i.e. design, delivery and monitoring of public goods delivery in a monopolistic system.

In some ways, reading this book makes one want to go back to David Osborne and Ted Gaebler's 1993 book Reinventing Government which was, essentially, an argument that governments do best when they concentrate on the steering and when they delegate the rowing of the ship of state (i.e. delivery of public goods) to the market. Perhaps it wasn't a right-wing rant after all. Perhaps there was a great deal of value in what they were arguing. Thus, as Stein argues, it's not an either or kind of thing. A world that puts government in charge of steering the market (closely regulated mind you) and takes care of delivery of public goods is one where those public goods are more likely to be delivered in a manner that is efficient. But that gets us back to the problem of what do we mean by efficient and how do we measure it when we know what we mean?

The author argues that to say something about efficiency, we have to understand effectiveness. If, for example, we are talking about education, what does effective education mean? Does it mean something that turns out literate and numerate beings at the end of several years? Does it mean something that turns out critical thinkers who will take part fully in society? Does it mean something that turns out kind and considerate beings, tolerant to the differences within their diverse societies? And, if we agree on what it means, how do we measure it? If, for example, we decide that we want to go for the most easily measurable purposes of education--literacy and numeracy--we have something of a shot at measuring its effectiveness because we can give standardized tests to see at what level students are reading and handling their mathematics. But, even here, there are problems of measurement. Stein spends some time on the danger of putting too much credence in the results of standardized tests. How do such tests differentiate between the influence of the school on the students' scores and the, probably far greater, influence of socio-economic difference? Equally importantly, Stein notes that just about all we ever measure is the 'countable' stuff, i.e. the quantitative, and this tells us nothing whatever about the quality of the goods.

Although the author claims here major interest is in the world of public goods period and that education and health care do not take precedence in her mind over the whole range of public goods, she does concentrate on education and health care as public goods to carry her arguments forward. And to do this, she gets into a discussion of charter schools, and different health care delivery systems. Interestingly, she does not raise the Illichian specter of schools and health care systems as places that are irrelevant (even harmful to) education and health, which would raise a whole different set of issues but, I believe, relevant issues. (See, for example Ivan Illich's Deschooling Society and Medical Nemesis.)

To sum up, the major essence of Stein's arguments are: (i) that all talk about efficiency is just so much nonsense because efficiency can not be an end in itself. The end has to be to deliver whatever it is--in this case public goods--in a way that is effective. To know what is effective you have to know what it is you are trying to do: educate people (what's that?) deliver health care? (what's that?); (ii) the move towards public markets may have been driven by the search for greater `efficiency' but it's virtually impossible to know if that end has been achieved, given the slippery nature of efficiency.

However, an unintended byproduct of this move towards public markets has been an increase in accountability and a wider range of choice. Both of these characteristics, argues Stein, are major driving forces in post-industrial social democracies such as Canada and, she would aver, lead to considerable improvements.

The arguments put forth in this book are arguments that those involved in evaluating the effectiveness of the delivery of public goods need to be aware of. The obsession with counting the countable and then falling into the trap that this actually provides a measure of efficiency is misguided at best and Janice Gross Stein demonstrates why.

Jim Ward is a consultant, and social researcher in Toronto. [e-mail]