Dwight Lee is Ramsey Professor at the Terry College of Business, University of Georgia, and an adjunct fellow at the Center for the Study of American Business at Washington University in St. Louis. T here are so many economic issues that cannot be understood properly without recognizing the importance of marginal considerations that I could continue writing columns on marginalism indefinitely. But this month I will wrap up my emphasis on marginalism with some additional observations on this crucial economic concept. We have all heard the advice, If a job is worth doing, it s worth doing right. There is wisdom in this advice if we are careful about what is meant by doing a job right.
People sometimes suggest that if a job is worth doing, it s worth doing perfectly.
But this advice, by ignoring the importance of marginal considerations, is a prescription for waste and inefficiency, as anyone who attempted to put it into practice would soon discover. No matter how much time is spent doing a job, it can almost always be done a little better by spending more time on it. But at some point the value of doing the job a bit better is less than the value of diverting a little more time to another activity. So even if perfection were possible, it would not be sensible. Instead of doing any one thing as well as possible, you are far better off doing several things not so well.