Moral Issues in Business 3rd Ed. Vincent Barry Wadsworth Pub. Co., 1986
pages 217–225
The great Greek philosopher Socrates (469-399 B.C.) was convinced that the way to attain knowledge was through a practice of developed conversation, a method he called dialectic. The goal of this dialogue or conversation was the clarification of key philosophic terms and ideas.
We are told that Socrates, accordingly, would haunt the streets of ancient Athens, buttonholing powerful men and asking them probing questions about their opinions. To those who pretended to knowledge about justice, he would ask: What is justice? When you say something or somebody is just, what do you mean? Similarly, he would investigate their ideas about virtue or knowledge or morality. By careful questioning, Socrates would plumb their belief systems, exposing cherished certainties to critical scrutiny. Understandably, Socrates' persistent demand for clarity of thought and exactness often aggravated his fellow citizens, some of whom began to consider him a threat to social stability. In the end they were successful in suppressing Socrates, but not in stilling his method of dialectic, which continues to resonate in the philosophical enterprise.
In this chapter we have seen that a declining rate of productivity growth lies behind the economic challenges facing us today. But on reflection it is not obvious what productivity is or why we should value it. In the following selection, Tolly Kizilos uses the dialectic to air difficult questions about the meaning of productivity, about measuring an individual’s contribution to a goal, and about the desirability of furthering human productiveness. Implicitly at stake as well are hard questions about the purposes of human production, the nature of capitalism, and the treatment of workers in an era of rapid technological advance.
These issues arise when Nikias and seven others are fired after Kratylus automates his workshop in Athens. In addition to Nikias, those participating in the dialogue are Ipponikos, a rich landowner, Kallias, a politician and member of the Assembly, and, of course, Socrates.
Reprinted by permission of the Harvard Business Review. Excerpts from “Kratylus Automates His Urnworks” by Tolly Kizilos (May—June 1984). Copyright ( 1984 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College; all rights reserved.
Kratylus Automates His Urnworks by Tolly Kizilos
Kallias: Here comes Nikias, troubled as usual about some social injustice or other.
Socrates: Good morning, Nikias. Isn’t it a bit early in the day to be looking so troubled?
Nikias: Good morning, my friends, if you can call good a morning on which you lose your job.
Ipponikos: Sit down, Nikias, and tell us what happened. Remember what Socrates always says: “Nothing bad in this world is uncontaminated by good.”
Nikias: I know what Socrates says, but it doesn’t make sense to me just now. I don’t know what will happen. I showed up for work at Kratylus’s urnworks this morning, as I’ve done for three years, and he told me and seven others that we were no longer needed. He’s installed some new foot-operated potter’s wheels with pulleys, so he doesn’t need as many people to do the work. Just like that, I’m unemployed.
Kallias: It wasn’t all that sudden, though, was it, Nikias? I heard Kratylus almost a month ago talking openly at the agora about the new wheels he was buying from Corinth. It was no secret that he was going to install them to raise productivity. He had to do it, he told me, or he’d go out of business. I realize that you and a few others will suffer for a while, but he has to increase the productivity of his business or everyone working for him could end up without a job. And if he and others don’t become more productive, Athens itself will take a backseat to Corinth and other cities, and all its citizens will suffer the consequences.
Nikias: We knew about it, all right, but we were hoping there would be other jobs we could do. Is it more productive to have people out of work, doing nothing, than to have them gainfully employed? How can the city’s productivity grow if a lot of people are out of work? As far as I’m concerned, that kind of narrow-minded productivity increase helps no one but Kratylus; it just feeds his greed.
Kallias: Come now, Nikias; you can’t possibly mean that! Productivity gains, no matter where, benefit everyone in the long run. You’ll find another job soon, or Kratylus’s business will expand and he’ll need more workers to operate the faster wheels.
Socrates: Is productivity then both good and evil? Is it both the requirement for the workers’ prosperity and the cause of their misfortunes?
Ipponikos: Ah, Socrates, how cleverly you always pose your questions—so pregnant with answers of your choosing! Why don’t you go on and say that this is impossible, therefore productivity is either good or evil and, consequently, only one of our friends here can be right?
Socrates: Because, my dear Ipponikos, there is always a chance that a pregnant question will deliver a revealing answer. I find that I always discover new things as I grow older.
Kallias: Well, I’m always suspicious about ambiguous concepts. Productivity is either good or evil, and only one of us is right. Otherwise the concept is meaningless.
Ipponikos: People can always stretch the meaning of words enough to understand and agree with each other. All it takes is a common culture and goodwill.
Kallias: You aren’t so bad at clever arguments yourself, Ipponikos. You imply that if we can’t understand and agree with each other, it doesn’t mean that some of us are wrong but that some are barbarians or rascals, or both. But perhaps you didn’t mean that?
Nikias: If this is going to be a battle of wits, count me out.
Socrates: Nikias is right. Let’s abandon generalities, which make philosophy irrelevant, and search for the meaning of productivity. Perhaps productivity is such an elusive concept that we can reach only a partial understanding of it, which, however, is acceptable to all of us. Let us be hopeful.
Ipponikos: With an ideologue like Kallias in the discussion, I’m afraid it’ll be a waste of time.
Nikias: So is what we’re doing right now. Let’s discuss the issue instead of arguing over trivia.
Kallias: I’ll tell you what productivity is, Socrates, or at least what is means to me—take it as you like. It’s not such a difficult concept. It’s simply the ratio of useful work output for a given valuable input. The higher the output for the same input, the higher the productivity is.
Take, for example, Kratylus’s urnworks. I know something about his business because occasionally he asks for my opinion. Kratylus produces about 200 urns a day and used to employ about 20 workers. If he can produce the same number of urns with half the work force, then he doubles his shop’s productivity. It’s as simple as that.
Ipponikos: It’s so simple, it’s idiotic. Whose productivity has he increased? Nikias isn’t productive anymore. He worked hard and still got laid off. Kratylus’s productivity gain is Nikias’s productivity loss.
Nikias: More productivity for Kratylus means more satisfaction of his greed.
Kallias: I don’t understand what’s happening to us. If we are here to denigrate Kratylus, I want no part of it.
Socrates: The path to the truth is often obscured by thorny bushes, Kallias.
Kallias: I know it’s hard to be objective right now, but the facts are irrefutable. When you were working for Kratylus—I’m sure very hard—you weren’t very productive because you were using a slow wheel to shape the urns. You were paid wages to produce something that cost so much it couldn’t be sold easily. Activity isn’t productivity, Nikias.
What’s needed is more output for a given input; what’s needed is more drachmas from the sale of urns per drachma of wages. Now you produce nothing, but your wages are also nothing; so, it makes no sense to talk about your productivity. Only when you get paid to produce something of value, that is, when there’s an input and an output, can we talk meaningfully about productivity.
Ipponikos: This input-output stuff may be useful when talking about machines or oxen, but it makes no sense when we’re discussing human beings. Productivity means productive activity. Human beings can be very productive even when they’re supported by handouts. Why, only two weeks ago I heard that the geometer of Diomedes, a pauper, mind you, if there ever was one, invented an instrument for measuring angles he calls a theodolite. I heard Telemachus say it will save thousands of workdays for his surveying crew when they’re setting the boundaries of farmers’ fields all around Attica. Diomedes received no wages—no input, as you would say, Kallias—but does that mean we can’t talk about his productivity? He is productive, very productive.
Kallias: Of course he is, my dear Ipponikos. Your example of Diomedes is precisely what I’ve been looking for to make my point. Maximum output with minimum possible input yields the highest productivity.
Nikias: So, productivity according to you is using up people. Humanity subordinated to the goddess of productivity. Perhaps you’d like to add another goddess to the 12 Olympians? It wouldn’t surprise me.
Kallias: I said minimum possible input, not minimum input. Possible is the essential….
Ipponikos: I don’t understand why you keep using inputs and outputs when you talk about human beings, Kallias. We could never define such things for humans, capable of an infinite variety and an infinite number of possible inputs and outputs, none of them exactly predictable. No man can be bound by defining him in terms of input and output. “Man is the measure of all things,” as Protagoras said—he cannot himself be measured.
Nikias: But to Kratylus and others who own shops, Ipponikos, there’s little difference among men, beasts, or machines. A person at work is told exactly what input he’ll have (that is, what wages he’ll be paid), exactly what he has to do, and what he’s expected to produce. That’s what happens when you work for someone else; you’re dehumanized.
Kallias: You’re too angry to contribute to this discussion, Nikias.
Ipponikos: Since when has anger been proven to be an obstacle in the search for truth?
Socrates: Nikias agrees with you, Ipponikos, that man is fundamentally different from the machine, and one of the reasons is that only machines have finite and measurable inputs and outputs by design.
Ipponikos: It’s even more fundamental than that: Kallias talks about wages as inputs, but that’s so narrow-minded it’s absurd. People can get more than wages for doing their jobs; they can get satisfaction, learning, enjoyment; they can be frightened or encouraged by what happens around them; they can be made to feel stronger or weaker by the actions of others. Their productive activity is often the result of all these impressions, shaped by thinking, feeling, and judgment. And as for their output, sometimes it’s so unpredictable as to instill awe, admiration, and delight.
Kallias: I’m really surprised by your views, Ipponikos. It seems that Protagoras and the other sophists have clouded your thoughts.
Ipponikos: I can do without your sarcasm, Kallias. Do me the courtesy of treating me like a person who can think for himself. If you have something to say about my views, say it without insinuations.
Kallias: I will, my friend, I most certainly will. You are espousing a very irresponsible view and I couldn’t possibly avoid commenting on it. According to you, a workshop owner should hire workers and pay them wages, but demand nothing specific of them. Some of them may want to loaf; others may decide to take up playwriting or singing instead of making urns; and some of them may even choose to work and produce urns once in a while. Now and then, perhaps, a worker will invent a new tool that improves the quality of urns or the productivity of the shop, but there will be no guarantees. And the wages have to keep coming steadily, guaranteed.
Is this a responsible way to run a business? Could the workshop owner entrust his future to the whims of his workers? The workers have no stake in the business and, if the shop went broke, they could leave at a moment’s notice to take jobs elsewhere. And what about those who really work hard to produce urns and urns alone? Wouldn’t this irresponsible approach be unfair to them?
Ipponikos: You talk as if the workers want to loaf and behave irresponsibly toward the owner and their fellow workers. You don’t trust them.
Kallias: Not everyone is responsible and trustworthy.
Ipponikos: Perhaps not. But if the owner trusts his people and rewards them fairly, I believe that the workers would strive to do their best for the business. Some will be less productive than others, but the productivity of the whole place will be higher when people feel free to use all their talents and skills. As for fairness, the workers themselves will set standards and require that everyone pull his weight.
Socrates: I hear a lot of views being expressed, but no conclusions. If this were a workshop, its productivity would be very low, and some of us, I fear, would have to be replaced by more productive philosophers, probably from Sparta. Can’t we first agree on what productivity means?
Kallias: It’s apparent to me, Socrates, that this isn’t possible with Ipponikos and Nikias present. If you and I were alone, we could be more productive than the whole city of Sparta discussing the issue.
Socrates: You and I, Kallias, might come up with conclusions very fast, but the quality of our conclusions might not be as high as it can be with our friends here contributing their ideas.
Kallias: Sooner or later, I suppose, we’ll have to talk about effectiveness and efficiency. I believe that productivity is high only when both efficiency and effectiveness are high.
Socrates: All right, let’s see what you mean. Suppose you hire me for a drachma a day to pick olives fallen from your olive trees in Eleusis. While I’m working, I notice that the fence protecting your property from the wild pigs is down. Pigs can get into your fields and devour the ripe olives that have fallen on the ground. Because I think this is more urgent and because I’m much better at repairing fences than gathering olives, I decide to fix your fence instead.
I work hard all day long and by sunset I’m done and I’m sitting on a rock admiring the good work I did. You return from you day’s debates at the Assembly and find me in this contemplative pose. You see that I have picked no olives but have fixed your fence. The question is, will you pay me as we agreed or not?
Kallias: Of course not. You changed our contract arbitrarily. I could suffer losses because of that. You shouldn’t have changed the output.
Nikias: He means he didn’t want you to think; do only what you were told. Be a machine or a mindless ox.
Socrates: But a contract is a contract, Nikias. What if he was counting on me to pick the olives so he could deliver them to someone who had a contract with him to buy them that same evening? I was productive, all right, but not productive doing what we agreed on. In that, my productivity was zero. So isn’t it true that productivity has meaning only when there’s an agreement on the inputs or wages, and the outputs or the goals?
Kallias: Of course it is.
Ipponikos: And if someone produces something very valuable without any agreement?
Socrates: It appears that it doesn’t make sense to talk about productivity when there’s no agreement, explicit or implicit.
Kallias: Exactly. Productivity pertains to work toward a goal. There must be expectation of output and fulfillment of that expectation.
Socrates: I’m glad you agree with what I said. But I have some difficulty with it, and you may be able to help me. It has to do with something that happened when they were building the mound commemorating the glorious dead who fell at the battle of Marathon.
Kallias: I can’t for the life of me imagine what Marathon has to do with productivity. Are you serious?
Ipponikos: Perhaps you’ve hit on your problem, Kallias—lack of imagination.
Socrates: Please, allow me to continue. Everything is related to everything else, say some philosophers, and I’ll be happy to explain what I mean if you let me.
Nikias: You are the last person on earth I would want to stop, Socrates. You’re usually able to deliver what you promise, but even if you weren’t, you’re too stubborn to be stopped.
Socrates: I’ll take that as praise, Nikias, and go on. After Pericles gave his marvelous funeral oration on that hallowed ground, he left behind General Meno from Orchomenos in charge of 100 slaves and ordered him to build the mound in 30 days. Meno was determined to obey the order even though he estimated that the project would take twice that time. It is said that General Meno became a tyrant with the slaves, driving them ruthlessly to work.
One day, during an inspection of the project, he discovered a slave who sat on the nearby edge of the marsh in blissful repose. Furious, he ordered his lieutenants to flog him until he was hardly alive. General Meno wanted to make this laggard an example for the other slaves, demonstrating to them that because the slave didn’t produce, he made everyone else work harder. “He is a weight upon the earth!” he shouted for all to hear, using Homer’s words.
Kallias: I still don’t see….
Socrates: Then one of the most productive slaves stepped forward and asked to speak. General Meno could hardly hold back his anger, but because he valued this slave greatly he allowed him to say his piece. “This man, sir,” the slave said, pointing to his doomed comrade, “is one of the most productive slaves you have. It is true that he neither sweats nor strains his back digging and shoveling earth, but he contributes to the building of the mound more than anyone else.”
“And how does he do this? Gazing at his belly button while you and the others break your backs?” the general demanded.
“You see, General,” the slave said with conviction, “he is a storyteller, not a digger. If he was shoveling dirt with all his might, he couldn’t do in a day more than I do in an hour. But after work, when we all return to camp, dog-tired, miserable, and hopeless—for what can we expect from the future but more bondage and more misery?—when we are gathered around the campfire at night, this man spins tales of hope for us and makes our lot bearable. We listen to him and dream of a better life after we end this project. He makes our burdens lighter, and we can fall asleep with dreams of freedom in our heads. Next day we are ready for work, believing that if our work pleases you and the Athenians, we may some day gain our freedom.”
Kallias: I think I’m beginning….
Socrates: Please let me finish. “So,” the slave went on, “this man does his part. If you beat him senseless, or cripple him, or—worst of fates!—kill him, who will keep us hoping, dreaming, and working? If hope vanishes, punishment and death hold no fear, General. We may not be able to build your mound. Think of that, sir, and allow this man to go on producing what he is best able to produce: tales of hope. You need him as much as, if not more than, we do.”
So spoke the valued slave, and General Meno listened. He ordered his lieutenants to release the man, who went on to tell tales until the project was finished—exactly on time. The question, dear Kallias, is this: Was the storytelling slave productive or not?
Kallias: Of course he was productive, probably the most productive of all. He contributed to the achievement of the goal, didn’t he? Whether he knew it or not, he worked toward the same goal as all the other slaves.
Socrates: So, you say, productivity is work toward a goal. You wouldn’t pay me for fixing your fence because you had set the goal as gathering fallen olives. What about here? Here, the goal was to build a mound, just as Kratylus’s goal is to produce urns, and ours is to come up with the truth. But this slave wasn’t building the mound, I wasn’t gathering olives, and some workers at Kratylus’s urnworks may not be producing as many urns as their fellows.
Yet you just told us that this slave was probably the most productive slave working on the mound. Could I have been more productive to you by fixing your fence? Could Nikias, who wasn’t producing as much with his old wheel, and I bumbling now on my way to the truth, be more productive than others who achieve stated goals? Could it be, Kallias, that Nikias, now that he is searching for the truth with us, is more productive to our city (and of course to Kratylus) than when he was making urns?
Kallias: I thought you would twist things sooner or later, Socrates, and I’ve been alert to it.
Ipponikos: It won’t help you much, Kallias. You’re too efficient to be effective. If you’re sure you know the truth and you’re sitting here searching for it, you are obviously wasting your time, and your productivity has to be nil.
Kallias: Leave your sophistry for later, Ipponikos, and let me respond to Socrates. It seems to me, Socrates, that you are mixing two kinds of productivity. Yes, Nikias is more productive to our city when he’s searching for the truth with us than he would be if he were doing nothing. To the extent that Kratylus is a citizen of Athens, he benefits from Nikias’s philosophizing as does every other citizen. But Nikias is not productive to Kratylus because he simply isn’t making urns any more.
Socrates: But if our city is more productive, doesn’t Kratylus have a better chance to sell his wares? And if that is so, isn’t it fair to say that Kratylus, as the owner of the workshop, is benefiting from Nikias’s philosophizing?
Kallias: Productivity loses all meaning if you put it that way. Humanity benefits from anything productive anyone does. But I still say that productivity is a useful concept only when it’s limited to specific goals achieved by specific persons.
Ipponikos: Come on, Kallias, use you imagination! Think of all the ways the workers, even at Kratylus’s workshop, can contribute to the production and sale of urns even when they’re not actually making or selling urns. No one can say whether a person is productive by just looking at him or by measuring only specific inputs and outputs.
Kallias: Use your reason, Ipponikos.
Socrates: But Kallias, how can you tell when a person is doing something or nothing? And how can you say that a person can be productive to the city but not to Kratylus’s workshop, which is after all, a part of the city? And how can you tell if a person is productive when the goals set for that person are different from the goals toward which a person works? One can still contribute to the goals if one interprets goals more broadly.
Kallias: All I know is that somehow or other using a new wheel makes Kratylus’s workshop more productive because he can lay off Nikias and some other workers and still produce the same number of urns. Then Nikias, as Kratylus had thought, finds something else to do—philosophize, in this case—and he becomes productive again to the city and to Kratylus, because he is also a citizen.
Socrates: That’s well put, Kallias. But if Nikias is now productive to the city, he must be paid for his productivity. Yet I haven’t heard of anyone willing to put philosophers on the public payroll. Would you propose that the Assembly pass a law to do that? It certainly would help us all, Nikias and me in particular, since we are not influential politicians like you or wealthy landowners like Ipponikos.
Ipponikos: It’s not only philosophers who are productive and should be compensated but also geometers, poets, musicians, and all kinds of other people who work with their minds.
Kallias: Everyone would become a freeloader.
Nikias: Are you saying that all thinkers are freeloaders?
Kallias: Don’t be absurd, Nikias. I’m saying that people with no talent for geometry or music or bent for philosophical search would claim to be geometers, musicians, and philosophers in order to collect money from the city and avoid sweating in workshops and fields. Since there is no way to measure their output, no one could tell whether Socrates was more productive than the man who sweeps the steps leading up to the Parthenon. The sweeper could claim, for example that gazing at the blue sky was helpful in proving the Pythagorean theorem in a new way.
Socrates: And so we have arrived at a point where we must make distinctions: there is productivity and there is productivity, and unless we sort these out we will never come to any conclusions. There is productivity of persons who perform manual work with a physical output; productivity of persons whose output is thoughts, poems, song, inventions, proofs, and so on; and productivity of groups, such as ours, organizations or institutions, such as Kratylus’s workshop or our beloved city of Athens. There are the entities to which we have attached potential for productivity.
Nikias: I’ll start by defining the productivity of manual workers.
Kallias: Their productivity depends simply on their output, be it urns made, olives picked, marble slabs quarried, or what have you, divided by the cost of production, which is mostly wages.
Nikias: You may think it’s that simple, but I don’t. Even a manual worker has a mind that he can use when he does his work. His productivity can be defined your way only if you rob him of his mind. If one does that by rigidly defining the input and the output, that is, if one dehumanizes him, then one can define his productivity accurately—so many urns per drachma of wages, so much earth moved to build a mound per loaf of bread, so many olives gathered per day’s wage.
One can go even further and define the productivity of those workers who work with their intellect that way—so many plays written, or songs composed, or theorems proved, or philosophical conclusions reached per drachma. But remember, the only way this can be done is if you set rigid, unalterable inputs and outputs. If a philosopher wrote a poem and an urnmaker proved a theorem of geometry, their productivity would be nothing.
Ipponikos: In other words, Kallias, you have to choose between having a precise definition of productivity and missing a lot of good work, or having at best a sloppy definition and allowing other, unanticipated but valuable work to be encouraged.
Kallias: I can’t believe this! You argue with the same cunning as some unscrupulous colleagues of mine in the Assembly. I will give you a precise definition that at the same time encourages all valuable work to proceed: set outputs that are to be met unless more valuable outputs are produced. General Meno set goals, but when a slave produced stories that helped the goal indirectly, the general recognized that his output was more valuable than his manual output would have been in furthering the goal directly.
This way the worker whose output is supposed to be the production of urns will be rewarded when he produces urns or something else, a new potter’s wheel or a great poem perhaps, which the person who set the goals and must pay for their accomplishment finds equally valuable or even more valuable than the production of urns. This is my position, and I challenge you to find fault with it!
Socrates: It is indeed an excellent position, Kallias. You have said that productivity for an individual worker is his valuable output per given input. It is a good definition, but you haven’t told us how the value of the output is determined or whether the person who evaluated it is competent to do so.
Ipponikos: I would hate to have Kratylus decide the relative value of ten urns versus Sophocles’ Antigone.
Kallias: Again, your way of arguing is to ridicule. I’m getting annoyed with you, Ipponikos, and unless you change your ways I will have to bid you farewell and seek a more congenial discussion elsewhere.
Ipponikos: I apologize for my sarcasm, Kallias. But please, do respond to Socrates.
Kallias: I don’t believe that shop owners are any less competent to evaluate the relative worth of urns and plays than anyone else. Judgment, after all, is one of the most important attributes one must have to succeed in business.
Socrates: Wouldn’t it perhaps be better if the employer and the wage earner could discuss the value of the work or the productivity of the wage earner and agree on it? After all, the person who produces something may be the only one who can explain the purpose for which he produced that thing and judge its value from his perspective.
Kallias: That process might work in Socrates’ ideal state, but I don’t think it has a chance in Athens. The wage earner can discuss all you like him to discuss, but when the time comes to decide how productive he is, when it comes to making a decision on how much he should be paid, the one who has the power, who pays the wages, will have the final word.
Ipponikos: You say that those who have the power set the standards and you accuse me of arguing like the sophists? Why, what you just said is exactly what Thrasymachus teaches.
Kallias: Then I have to admit that even a sophist can be right, once.
Nikias: I’ve had enough of the sophists. I want to hear Socrates on what workers have to say about the value of their work.
Socrates: Even if we assume that power is what one needs to set standards, what I said still stands. The wage earner also has power because the employer needs him to be as productive as possible, not be a mere machine executing set goals. If the employer doesn’t evaluate him correctly, the wage earner will cease coming up with new products, new methods, or new ideas, and the productivity of the organization will suffer. Since the employer cannot make the wage earner be creative or take the initiative, or modify goals to suit changed situations, he must ensure that the wage earner stays motivated. And the best way for the employer to achieve that is not to be arbitrary or authoritarian but to share his power of evaluation with him.
I see you’re shaking your head, Kallias. When you reflect on these thoughts you may become less skeptical. In any case, it is an alternative way of settling the issue we were discussing. Productivity increases come not only from getting faster wheels in the workshops but also from workers such as Nikias who feel in a way like owners of the workshop. Isn’t it then correct to say that productivity is defined by whatever reasonable input and output both wage earner and employer agree on?
Kallias: Though I don’t believe that this process will work, I agree that it is worth an experiment to find out. But I don’t think we have really defined productivity.
Nikias: If we have arrived at a conclusion….
Socrates: Definitions can get us only so far. It’s the dialogue between well-meaning people that gains our ends. This is the process, it seems to me, that will also determine the productivity of organizations such as Kratylus’s workshop or our beloved city of Athens. Plato may not agree entirely with me on this, but I believe that the productivity of Athens is great because we all partake in making the decisions that govern our lives. Democracy is a form of participation, and it’s surprising that it hasn’t been applied to our workshops in some appropriate form.
Kallias: Well, I have always felt that productivity was of great concern to both politics and business. If we set goals and compile a list of all the services our city provides for its citizens, then measure them….
Socrates: I doubt that it would be either possible or meaningful, Kallias. The evaluation of our city’s productivity is in the hands of future generations. Whether we sink to oblivion or history remembers us is not predictable or determined by a list of services or the Assembly’s definition of goals. Athens and other cities and states will live on if they encourage their citizens to excel in what they do best.
Nikias: Before you go any further with an encomium to our city, Socrates, I would like to know if anyone here intends to inform Kratylus of my contributions to our discourse and ask him whether he would reconsider his decision to lay me off. If this isn’t anyone’s intention, I’d like to move on and look for another job before my family has to beg for food.
Kallias: I can certainly talk to him about it. But would you be willing to moderate your demands on wages? At least until his workshop begins to make profits again?
Nikias: I’ll do anything reasonable to keep my job, of course. But if the job could be a little more satisfying than what I used to do, or if I have some say on what I do and how I am evaluated, then I’ll bear the load more comfortably and I may even turn out more urns than ever before.
Socrates: I’m sure, Nikias, that you’re speaking the truth.
Kallias: Can anyone venture a guess as to our productivity in this discussion?
Socrates: We’ve done our best, and I believe we’ve reached some agreements. If we didn’t answer all the questions and didn’t solve all the problems, it isn’t because we were unproductive but because some problems are beyond our reach. Sisyphus, who rolls his stone up the mountain only to have it roll back down, is not unproductive; he works as hard as he possibly can, doing everything a human being can do. If he isn’t as productive as he could be, it’s because the gods have chosen it to be that way. So with us; we have done as well as we can. The gods may allow others in the future to do better.
Nikias: If one could only eat the truth he produces….
Ipponikos: Of course one can, Nikias. All one has to do is make the truth wanted by many.
Kallias: Next time I’ll ask Kratylus to join us. We should have more businessmen-philosophers around.
Socrates: It would be a wonderful thing to do. I pray for your success.
| Last Updated: 10/19/22 |