5
But, of course, each of the ten bureaus could not work in a watertight
compartment. In their relation one to another lies the best chance for
that "coordination" of which so much is heard and so little seen.
Clearly the various staffs would need to adopt, wherever possible,
standards of measurement that were comparable. They would exchange
their records. Then if the War Department and the Post Office both buy
lumber, hire carpenters, or construct brick walls they need not
necessarily do them through the same agency, for that might mean
cumbersome over-centralization; but they would be able to use the same
measure for the same things, be conscious of the comparisons, and be
treated as competitors. And the more competition of this sort the
better.
For the value of competition is determined by the value of the
standards used to measure it. Instead, then, of asking ourselves
whether we believe in competition, we should ask ourselves whether we
believe in that for which the competitors compete. No one in his
senses expects to "abolish competition," for when the last vestige of
emulation had disappeared, social effort would consist in mechanical
obedience to a routine, tempered in a minority by native inspiration.
Yet no one expects to work out competition to its logical conclusion
in a murderous struggle of each against all. The problem is to select
the goals of competition and the rules of the game.
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