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[Gene GeRue <genegerue AT ruralize.com>]

On Jun 11, 2008, at 11:39 AM, Clansgian AT wmconnect.com wrote:

> What's it called ... thinking .... the Jeavons Paradox.  As  
> something becomes
> more efficient, we tend to use MORE of it rather than less.  Gas  
> being a good
> example.  As gas mileage went up, rather than entering a long age of  
> cheap
> transportation, we bought more cars and drove them longer distances.
>
> One rarely escapes the paradox.  If 'competent' people had  
> prosecuted the
> wars in Afghanistan and Iraq with far less waste, history and human  
> nature show
> we would have waged MORE war, not less.   </HTML>

This is at Wikipedia:

"In his 1865 book The Coal Question, Jevons observed that England's  
consumption of coal soared after James Wattintroduced his coal-fired  
steam engine, which greatly improved the efficiency of Thomas  
Newcomen's earlier design. Watt's innovations made coal a more cost  
effective power source, leading to the increased use of the steam  
engine in a wide range of industries. This in turn increased total  
coal consumption, even as the amount of coal required for any  
particular application fell. Jevons argued that increased efficiency  
in the use of coal would tend to increase the use of coal, and would  
not reduce the rate at which England's deposits of coal were being  
depleted."

It is a nice premise. In the 143 years since Jevons made his argument  
the economic world has changed. Even supply and demand has become  
artificially manipulated. Take government and power brokers out the of  
equation and he might still be accurate. But not as things are now.

And while it might still have an effect in commodities trading it is a  
stretch to apply his theory to human management efficiency. Myriad  
highly successful companies today became thus by becoming more  
efficient than their competitors.