Kropotkin wondered the same in the 1880s [0]

[0]: https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/peter-kropotkin/the-conque...

focusing on efficiency is very depressing. Machines seek efficiency. Process can be efficient. Assembly lines are efficient. It's all about optimization and quickly focuses on trimming "waste" and packing as much as possible into the smallest space. It removes all that's amazing about human life.

I much prefer a focus on effectiveness (or impact or outcomes, or alternatives). It plays to human strengths, is far less prescriptive and is way more fun!

Some of the most effective actions are incredibly inefficient; sometimes inefficiency is a feature. I received a letter mail thank-you card from our CEO a few years ago. The card has an approx. value of zero dollars, but I know it took the CEO 5-10 mins to write a personal note and sign it, and that she did this dozens of times. The signal here is incredibly valuable! If she used a signing machine, or AI to record a deep fake message I would know or quickly learn, and the value would go negative - all for the sake of efficiency.

I think this is a big part of it. Workers would feel a lot more motivated to do more than just perform if they were given what they know they’re owed for their contribution.

Europe stole them.

Faced with increasing efficiency, Europe by and large appears to have chosen to work less and let expensive things remain expensive. The US, by contrast, now has ridiculously cheap consumer goods, and works all the time.