Lessons from Joseph Heller, Pt. 1

I'm currently reading 'Catch-22' and I think I've stumbled on to a key ingredient that's currently missing from a number of American industries: a perfect blending of total mediocrity and complete ineptitude.

Mediocrity I think we've mastered. As Garrison Keillor recently said about Lake Wobegonians -- which holds true for the American Work Machine -- first place isn't really for us; honorable mention is more than good enough...if you gave us a gold trophy we'd have it bronzed.

But complete ineptitude, well, that's another matter entirely. Our lack of failure has nearly destroyed this country, evidenced most starkly by the downfall of companies like GM and Chrysler.

From 'Catch-22':

"Colonel Cargill, General Peckem's troubleshooter, was a forceful, ruddy man. Before the war he had been an alert, hard-hitting, aggressive marketing executive. He was a very bad marketing executive. Colonel Cargill was so awful a marketing executive that his services were much sought after by firms eager to establish losses for tax purposes. Throughout the civilized world, from Battery Park to Fulton Street, he was known as a dependable man for a fast tax write-off. His prices were high, for failure often did not come easily. He had to start at the top and work his way down, and with sympathetic friends in Washington, losing money was no simple matter. It took months of hard work and careful misplanning. A person misplaced, disorganized, miscalculated, overlooked everything and opened every loophole, and just when he thought he had it made, the government gave him a lake or a forest or an oilfield and spoiled everything. Even with such handicaps, Colonel Cargill could be relied on to run the most prosperous enterprise into the ground. He was a self-made man who owed his lack of success to nobody." ('Catch-22', Joseph Heller, pp 33-4)