Choosing the Right Metric for the Job

Abstract

Failure to be able to measure progress toward a clear goal is a sure sign of inevitable failure. When goals are so ill-defined that a crude ancillary measure, over time, becomes the goal, then progressive management becomes impossible. For the most part, through history, elites rose to power on the waves of economic dominance of particular sectors. When those sectors began to decline and be supplanted by other sectors, the elites tied to those sectors typically held on to power as long as possible, employing all manner of devices to retain their grip on privilege. The measures that best represented their interests were the ones they championed. But as economies and nations transform, metrics which once represented national benefit or at least coincided with the rise of national welfare may become obsolete or even misleading, hence the need to be clear on the objectives, rather than be tied to one simple metric to the exclusion of all critical thought. In the past, nations have only measured gross energy or the total energy produced. This was not a problem in an era of energy abundance, but policy based on gross energy, rather than net energy and EROI, is like judging the health of a company on the basis of gross sales rather than net profit.