When “efficiency” kills

Submitted by AWL on 21 April, 2020 - 8:11
Just in time production

Slow and clumsy responses to the pandemic are down to “pursuit of maximum efficiency — just-in-time manufacturing, supply chains, and deployment of personnel [becoming] the norm across the private and increasingly the public sector”.

That’s not a socialist commenting, but a columnist in the Financial Times. “Efficiency” is measured in capitalist terms of visible “market signals”, and so inescapably fails to provide against unknown risks.

The FT says: “The over-efficient management of the NHS means that for just-in-case scenarios, we were in deep trouble. There was no margin for error.”

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