So the more you are able to analyze administration and work out
elements that can be compared, the more you invent quantitative
measures for the qualities you wish to promote, the more you can turn
competition to ideal ends. If you can contrive the right index numbers
[Footnote: I am not using the term index numbers in its purely
technical meaning, but to cover any device for the comparative
measurement of social phenomena.] you can set up a competition between
individual workers in a shop; between shops; between factories;
between schools; [Footnote: See, for example, _An Index Number for
State School Systems_ by Leonard P. Ayres, Russell Sage Foundation,
1920. The principle of the quota was very successfully applied in the
Liberty Loan Campaigns, and under very much more difficult
circumstances by the Allied Maritime Transport Council.] between
government departments; between regiments; between divisions; between
ships; between states; counties; cities; and the better your index
numbers the more useful the competition.
6
The possibilities that lie in the exchange of material are evident.
Each department of government is all the time asking for information
that may already have been obtained by another department, though
perhaps in a somewhat different form. The State Department needs to
know, let us say, the extent of the Mexican oil reserves, their
relation to the rest of the world's supply, the present ownership of
Mexican oil lands, the importance of oil to warships now under
construction or planned, the comparative costs in different fields.
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