A SURVEY OF FEATHERBEDDING, ESPECIALLY WHITE COLLAR


	When we consider how to increase productivity, we immediately
face  the fact that  large numbers of  people make  their living from
unproductive activity.  These  situations continue for the  following
reasons:  (1)  The  unproductive  activity  is  often  mixed  with  a
productive  one, and the two  are not easy  to disentangle. (2) Union
contracts. (3) Tradition. (4) Laws requiring  the useless activities.
We  shall  call  such activities  rackets  in  order  to establish  a
pejorative atmosphere.

	The most widely discussed  such rackets are those  maintained
by blue collar  workers with the  help of union strength.   Classical
and  much fought over  examples include locomotive  firemen on diesel
trains, standby  musicians and  stagehands,   linotype operators  who
reset already set up ads and who have become comletely redundant with
automation,   airline  flight  engineers,   and the  beneficiaries of
makework rules  in  the  building trades.    However, each  of  these
rackets  has been  fought over  by the  employers,   and  progress is
gradually made  in reducing  them.   At  least it  seems to  me  that
progress is being  made, but I don't  no what percent of  manual work
can be regarded as  unnecessary or how this has changed with time.  A
real survey would be worthwhile.  To be fair, it should  be mentioned
that not  all claims  of featherbedding are  true, because  a speedup
beyond  a "normal" working pace  can be represented  as a campaign to
eliminate  featherbedding.    However,    just  because  there  is  a
concentrated interest opposed to employee featherbedding - namely the
employers - this is not where we should expect the worst abuses.

	The worst featherbedding rackets  are in the professions  and
by business itself.  There the adverse interest is diffuse - i.e. the
general  public -  and rarely has  the knowledge  to know that  it is
being taken.  The most  publicized example is the undertaking  racket
where advantage is  taken of a rare occasion of  great strain to sell
unnecessary  services.  Sometimes  the law  is used to  help sell the
services as  in the California  law that  prevented (and maybe  still
prevents) a person  from having posession of the  ashes of a cremated
relative - they had  to remain in the  posession of an undertaker  or
cemetery who  would  charge for  it; the  rationalization was  public
health.   However, undertaking is  not a high  prestige profession in
the modern world, and its  rackets are have been repeatedly  attacked
by publicity,   and the politics of consumerism  has probably already
reduced  the  problem  and may  eventually  reduce  it  to negligible
proportions.

	Some of the worst rackets  are in the law profession.   Since
the legislators are mostly lawyers, there is little any other segment
of society can  do to  reduce or  even fully  understand the  abuses.
Probably there  should  be a  non-lawyer watchdog  commission on  the
practice  of law with  the power at  least to  make widely publicized
recommendations.  Some examples of legal rackets include restraint of
trade by the prohibition of advertising and bar association schedules
of  minimum fees.   (When a  professional says the  word "ethics", he
usually  means  an  illegal  combination  in   restraint  of  trade).
Advertising is also prohibited  to reduce competition in medicine and
in  the  sale  of  prescription   drugs.    Minimum  fees  exist   in
stockbroking and  real estate  brokerage, and  a stockbroker told  me
that their ethics required him to take the full five days allowed for
the paying  the  money  due on  a  sale.    The stock  market  is  an
interesting example where new  technology should eventually allow the
existing  monopolies to  be broken.   Namely, soon  all stock trading
will be accomplished  through a single  computer system, whether  the
stock is over-the-counter or is listed in one of the major exchanges.
At this  point,  the  distinction  between  the  two  becomes  almost
meaningless.  The  idea is that any broker  will be able to  make the
trade  directly, and  membership in  the exchange  will no  longer be
necessary or else will  be available to  all brokers a nominal  cost.
The next step is  for a customer to sue to make  access to the system
available  to customers  directly  without paying  a commission  to a
broker, but only  the computer costs  incurred. Hopefully, this  will
eliminate a substantial part of the stockbroking industry.