Past Success, Good Intentions, and Appropriateness of Tools

If you pick the U.S. based farmer who, in 2018, achieved highest productivity per hectare of land, if you insist that this farmer apply a harvester to planting of his or her crops during the very next cropping season, this farmer, who was voted the best farmer in 2018, will, in context of the 2020 cropping season, turn out to be the very worst farmer.

Suppose an item is screwed tight with a flat nut. If you hand an engineer who won an award in course of 2018 a screwdriver with a hexagonal tip for unscrewing of the flat nut, more likely than not, 30 days later, he or she still will be at same task.

If the engine of a car functions on diesel, and you ask the best race car driver in the world to fill it up with gas for a 100-mile race, more likely than not, the best race car driver in the world comes out last.

Embedded in notions of ability is capacity for deciphering and adhering to application of tools that are appropriate to tasks or objectives.

In the preceding illustrations, regardless of any good intentions of the economic agents — the farmer, the engineer, or race car driver — none are able to arrive at good success in context of assigned tasks or objectives.