Human Action Part II: A Tool Kit

“By Grabthar’s hammer, we live to tell the tale!” – Galaxy Quest

Three years ago my doctor told me I was losing my hearing.  I haven’t heard from him since.

Last week I touched base on Ludwig von Mises’ theory of human action that he wrote about in his book Human Action while probably not getting a lot of action.  I mean, he was writing all the time.

The basics of Ludwig’s theory are pretty simple.  I’ll give a quick recap of the three requirements to human action.  There’s much more at last week’s post (A Brief Guide To Human Action – Which Leads To Human Freedom):

A Vision Of A Better State:  Wilder, Wealthy, and Wise® is the basis for rebuilding society after the collapse.

A Path To Get To A Better State:  Writing more.  Finally getting around to starting that cult – Wilderology©:  The Post-Apocalyptic Cult, With a Difference!™

A Belief That Action Will Really Lead To A Better State:  Elon Musk finally answered my voice mails!  Okay, it was a cease and desist letter from his attorney, but it’s a start.

Again, these requirements of Vision, Path, and Belief can show up in any order – although the example above starts with a Vision, that’s not required.  Most often, I’ve seen that’s the catalyst for action – a Vision – but sometimes it’s nothing more than a person with a talent and free time eventually coming across a Vision by accident.

This is the only way to explain ¡Jeb!

Jeb was a pallbearer at his dad’s funeral, so he could let him down one last time.

If the three elements of Vision, Path and Belief are there, action is nearly inevitable.  If even one is missing, action rarely happens.

One of the lines in the post seemed like a throwaway, but it was really a setup for this post.  Whereas that last post ended up pointing out that we as a nation are governed only by our consent, this post is a bit more practical – a tool kit – in solving problems when dealing with people.

The other tool kit, I mean.  Sure you can always get more cooperation with a .45 and a kind word than with just the kind word, but sometimes The Mrs. thinks the Glock® is a bit much when trying to convince Pugsley to take out the trash.

I put glue on my Glocks®.  I’m sticking to my guns.

The basis of this toolkit is simple.  If all three elements of human action exist, human action should follow.  Missing an element?  Just like von Mises while he was writing his book, no action.

Let’s break it down a little further when dealing with actual people:

Vision is vision.  However, if a Vision isn’t shared, people won’t be going in the same direction.  For instance, if my Vision of a clean bathroom looks like miles of gleaming chrome and sparkling porcelain where I would be proud to eat moist scrambled eggs off of any surface, that’s wonderful.

But if Pugsley’s Vision of a clean bathroom looks like a petri dish left in the steaming jungles of the Amazon during plague week and it’s okay the toilet is flushed on alternate Wednesdays (except during Lent) he and I may have the seeds for a conflict.

How do I fix that?  First, I have to communicate my Vision to him.  That may involve choking and yelling.  Choking for emphasis, and yelling because I want him to know why I’m choking him.  Then he knows the Vision is important to me.

Just kidding.  Normally, I’ll clean an area.  I point out that, “This is what I want.”  The primal part in his teenager brain not devoted to Chicken McNuggets®, driving, girls, and sleep then dimly understood my point.  He may not share my Vision (more on that later) but he certainly knows what it is.

Next comes Path.  For me, acting alone to clean a bathroom, is simple:  grab the stuff and clean.  There’s nothing that a liberal application of flame, kerosene, and bleach can’t take care of.  Oh, yeah, don’t forget the acid.  Gotta clean that toilet bowl.  My motto when cleaning Pugsley’s bathroom?

“If it bleeds we can kill it.”

For millions of years, the most dangerous predator the world had ever known was T. Rex.  Now it’s J. Biden.

But why would I act alone to clean a bathroom?  The Mrs. calls me “Juan De La Gator” and I try to live up to that.  I wouldn’t clean a bathroom by myself because . . . I live with a teenager.  Honestly, I don’t feel I should clean Pugsley’s bathroom at all, because . . . it’s his bathroom.  One of my cardinal rules as a parent is to never do work around the house that a kid could do.

It’s called building character.  (snicker)

The next question I have to ask myself is does Pugsley have the ability to do good work – does he have the talent for it and the ability to focus?  Yes, he does.  Talent for cleaning a bathroom to standards slightly above the third world (or France, but I repeat myself) isn’t rare.

Does he have the focus to do it?  Certainly.  I’ve seen him work like a monster to loosen a bearing on the lawnmower deck to fix it himself.  And this week he’s spent several hours not fixing (yet) the garbage disposal – I’m thinking he’ll bring that home tomorrow.  So, he has focus.

What deodorant do prospectors choose?  They pick Axe®.

Ability (and talent) and focus are the Path.  If he’s missing one of them, the path is incomplete.  If you ask an Albanian mall lawyer to fix a copier, all you’ll get is an incomprehensible series of grunts, some drool, and a floor hip-deep in toner powder.  The extent of the Albanian mall lawyer’s ability is to poke at the copier (breaking small plastic parts in the process) and make grunting, vaguely simian noises.

But as bad as they are at copier repair, if you need a parking ticket fixed, you can’t beat an Albanian mall lawyer.  They’re as feisty and cunning as starving midgets in a cage fight over a pork loin while armed with claw hammers.  Never underestimate the power of a claw hammer – it can also be a bus pass or a coupon for a free dinner.

What about ownership?

When it comes to mowers and garbage disposals at our house – Pugsley “owns” those.  He decided to fix those, and my support has been mainly moral (“Did you want to see the assembly instructions before you try to fix it yourself, Columbus?”) and financial (“Yes, we can order a new seal since that one is ruined now”).  Let’s be real:  when people own the systems they’re working on, and own the results, they put a part of themselves into those systems.  The results matter to them.

Ownership matters.

If Pugsley owns the results, things get fixed.  The Mrs. bought him a new shower rod for his bathroom.  “Come here, Dad.  Hold this.”  I played Statue of Liberty if instead of Liberty she was really the Statue of Installing Shower Curtain Rods.  My job was a simple job.  He was done with me in fifteen seconds.

Lastly, there are incentives.

For me, the incentive is a clean bathroom.  If I do the minimal job as Dad, for Pugsley the incentive for him is doing just enough minimal work so I leave him alone.

Minimal equals minimal.  The real win is when his incentive isn’t to shut me up, but his incentive is to clean the bathroom because it’s important to him – and he gets to look at it and say to himself, “I did that.”

Not all math jokes are hard.  Just sum.

As a father, dealing with incentives is easy.  There’s always the last resort:  “Hand me your phone and your car keys.”  It’s the claw hammer of incentives – and one I don’t want to use.  It always works, but when I get to that point I know that I haven’t done my job of creating ownership, which internalizes incentives.

Going back to our model:  Ownership and incentives are the Belief, the final key.

So:

• Vision=Vision (after it has been communicated and shared)
• Path=Ability, Talent, and Focus
• Belief=Ownership and Incentives

It’s not a perfect correlation, but it’s close.  When you look at something that’s not working when you’re dealing with people, think about this model.  Most often when there’s a problem that I’ve found it has been with either Incentives or Vision, but each of these can be broken.

Sure, Human Action is just a model but it’s an important tool, just like a hammer.  And to everyone who has a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.

And for every problem?

There’s a cage match with claw hammers.