This is my answer to a series of messages with different subjects in which several others and Jim Elwell were involved. I had enough time to reflect on the matter Sunday afternoon under the sun in my backyard. Here goes:
So Jim: I was basically thinking of your model of "non-interventionist metrication". It has very much in common with the non-interventionist economical model preached by Milton Friedman and to some extent applied by the Reagan admin. In Europe, this is the basis of the Liberal currents and you will probably find a Liberal party in most countries. Germany's Liberals have been coalition partners to many mainstream parties for decades. (Now replaced by the Greens) FYI I am still a member of the Liberal party in my country, although I had nothing in common with them for sometime now, and I disagree with their position today. At one time I was convinced that this is the only way to go. Twelve years later after I also lived and worked in Germany, Canada and US I think differently. To get to the point: The non-interventionist theory is a very simple one and very "clean" if I may. It basically says that the state should not attempt in any way to regulate the economy. Very few regulating tools are accepted in this theory, one of them is the control of the loan interest rate. (the Greenspan factor :-)) What you are saying Jim is that you favor the scenario where the US Gov. should not intervene in metrication and let this at the discretion of the industry which will eventually recognize the benefits of SI and adopt it by reasons of efficiency. A very democratic way indeed. What I think misses from this picture is the fact that the industry will metricate because of their need to export and the overwhelming majority of countries require SI products. If this factor was missing I doubt that there would be any need for the industry to metricate because every company functions by the principle of "minimal effort". So unless there is a CEO like yourself (and there are not many like you) which favors metrication there will be absolutely no drive to change the scales in a plant to SI units. Why would they do it? To screw up production for months until the employees get it? In other words your theory works only in the presence of markets like Europe, Japan, China etc. which are requiring SI because they are already SI. Hey, but these countries never adopted SI in the first place by applying the non-interventionist model! They ALL adopted it by the regulatory model. My point is that I am sure that the non-interventionist model will not work alone. It will most likely create a huge confusion instead. Why? Because in the absence of regulated standards the industry will come up with "industry standards" and the paint factories would market the paint's viscosity in Krebs Units while the oil manufacturers will market their products in Stokes. And so you will then find such a pallet of units that no one would speak the same language anymore. Now to give you an example. I was born and studied in Romania. Our country went metric since before the 1900s. I have been through engineering school and I never heard of the word inch or zoll or whatever. I had no idea they existed. Our country's standards were modeled by the DIN standards for very long time. Since the fall of the iron curtain the markets have liberalized. New products came on the market and one of them are the consumer air conditioners. I was puzzled to find out from my brother-in-law that the AC are rated in BTU in Romania. Attention, not even BTU/h! Needless to say, that I asked him what BTU means and he couldn't tell. When I told him that they should be rated in kW instead he looked at me in disbelief saying that the consumption of the AC is already in W but the cooling capacity is something else. Sounds familiar? So, my friend, this is what non-interventionism gives you. If the industry is mainly focused on US market because all these units come from Asian manufacturers which most likely mass produce for the US, then they have no interest in complicating themselves with printing new labels when no one asks them to. The next thing is that the population is now used with those units and if ever the Romanian Institute for Standards will revert to SI units everyone will be puzzled and there will be a good chunk of resistance from the consumer. Bottom line, if all the countries in the world would be ifp do you think they would ever change to SI just by the drive of the economy? If this was the case not even Star Trek would be metric! Adrian
