At a conference recently, I heard the chief executive of a supermarket chain proudly claim that installing automatic checkout machines was improving the company’s productivity. This is wrong, of course. These machines have replaced traditional checkout equipment — and their paid human operators — with unpaid customer labour in scanning and bagging. The company’s measured revenue per employee hour will certainly be rising. True productivity will not. Economic welfare in the round is reduced by the struggle we customers have with the still-imperfect new machines.
在最近的一個(gè)會(huì)議上，我聽到一家連鎖超市的首席執(zhí)行官自豪地宣稱，安裝自動(dòng)結(jié)賬機(jī)提高了公司的生產(chǎn)率。這個(gè)說法當(dāng)然是錯(cuò)誤的。這些機(jī)器用顧客掃描和裝袋的無償勞動(dòng)取代了傳統(tǒng)的結(jié)賬設(shè)備——以及它們花錢聘請(qǐng)的收銀員。如果計(jì)算該公司員工每小時(shí)為公司帶來的收入，這個(gè)數(shù)字肯定會(huì)增加。實(shí)際的生產(chǎn)率卻不會(huì)上升。整個(gè)社會(huì)的經(jīng)濟(jì)福祉還會(huì)因我們顧客要費(fèi)力操作尚不完善的新機(jī)器而下降。