Note to self:
“Men are much more likely to discover easier and readier methods of attaining any object, when the whole attention of their minds is directed towards that single object, than when it is dissipated among a great variety of things. But in consequence of the division of labour, the whole of everyman’s attention comes naturally to be directed towards some one very simple object.”
File under “Self-improvement, Productivity.”
Source: On the Wealth of Nations (1776), I.1.8.
Hmmm…a lot of counter-productive Taylorism stems from that passage in Smith. Lean production methods have demonstrated pretty convincingly that there is a limit to effective specialization.
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