HOW TO MAKE AMERICA PRODUCTIVE AGAIN

Who makes things? It is part of human hubris to ask that question because it assumes that only the things humans make are worth being called “made”. In fact, humans make almost nothing. Instead we remake what exists into new forms and uses. But as far as I can tell no human makes a raw product, we simply remake. I wish there was a more honest word for what we do.

I checked the thesaurus for synonyms of “make” but none of the words particularly describe our activities in changing raw products into some other thing. What we actually do is remake materials into new forms and uses. But none of the words in the thesaurus for “remake” actually describe what humans do either.

And what does it mean to make, or remake, something. Is it only the person who puts his hand to the raw product and changes it, or is the person who thought of the process a “maker” also? What about the person who designed the product; are they “makers”? Is the person who saw the design and the process and believed that it could work and so financed the operation, are they “makers”? And is the person who simply grows the products a “maker”, or a kind of miner?

Making is not always the same as production, yet we use the same word for extracting coal, growing crops, assembling cars, or manufacturing widgets. Making, mining and growing are not the same things, but they all seem productive. Even writers and musicians produce, but do they make? As I set out to make suggestions for how to make America productive, am I making anything at all? I am first beset by confusion over what it even means to make and produce.

This is the year 2011. It has been a busy holiday and I am just getting back to business, if one can call it that. My first post of the New Year was about time. Nothing to creative about that I suppose. But back in November of 2010 I wrote a blog about how America has moved from a production society to a consumption society. In that post I said I would follow up with one about how Americans might reverse that trend.

Was that ever presumptuous?! I have been thinking about that promise for over two months now and decided that there is so much to be said that suggestions for making America productive should become my theme for 2011. I don’t intend to neglect the bees. It turns out that bees are one way we can be productive, and at the same time save the world. It isn’t too much to ask is it?