Not everything that can be counted—counts...
The Little Prince on counting matters, ownership, and consequences
1The Little Prince meets a businessman2, who “…was so much occupied that he did not even raise his head at the little prince’s arrival.”
The little prince watches the businessman in action:
“Three and two make five.
Five and seven make twelve.
Twelve and three make fifteen.
Good morning.
Fifteen and seven make twenty-two.
Twenty-two and six make twenty-eight…
Twenty-six and five make thirty-one.
Phew!
Then that makes Five-hundred-and-one million, six-hundred-twenty-two thousand, seven-hundred-thirty-one.”
“Five hundred million what?” asked the little prince.
The businessman is too busy to respect the question with a direct answer.
“…I can’t stop...
I have so much to do!
I am concerned with matters of consequence.
I don’t amuse myself with balderdash…”
The persistent little prince insists on understanding, “Millions of what?”;
at last, the businessman answers:
“Millions of those little objects…which one sometimes sees in the sky.”
“Flies?”
Oh, no. Little glittering objects.”
Bees?”
“Oh, no. Little golden objects that set lazy men to idle dreaming.
As for me, I am concerned with matters of consequence.
There is no time for idle dreaming in my life.”
“Ah! You mean the stars?”
“Yes, that’s it. The stars.”
Having established that which the businessman is counting, the prince wonders:
“And what do you do with five-hundred millions of stars?”
“Five-hundred-and-one million, six-hundred-twenty-two thousand, seven-hundred-thirty-one.
I am concerned with matters of consequence:
I am accurate.”
“And what do you do with these stars?”
“What do I do with them? […]
Nothing.
I own them.”
The prince is baffled, as he had already met a king of the stars3, but the businessman clarifies:
“Kings do not own, they reign over.
It is a very different matter.”
“And what good does it do you to own the stars?”
“It does me the good of making me rich.”
“And what good does it do you to be rich?”
“It makes it possible for me to buy more stars, if any are ever discovered.”
The prince questions the notion of ownership as presented by the businessman:
“How is it possible for one to own the stars?”
“To whom do they belong?” […]
“I don’t know. To nobody.”
“Then they belong to me, because I was the first person to think of it.”
“Is that all that is necessary?”
“Certainly. When you find a diamond that belongs to nobody, it is yours.
When you discover an island that belongs to nobody, it is yours.
When you get an idea before any one else, you take out a patent on it: it is yours.
So with me: I own the stars, because nobody else before me ever thought of owning them.”
Assuming the ownership issue is clear (?), the prince seeks a purpose:
“And what do you do with them?”
“I administer them […] I count them and recount them.
It is difficult.
But I am a man who is naturally interested in matters of consequence.”
The little prince is after an actual use or benefit of the assumed ownership, to which the businessman explains:
“…I can put them in the bank.”
“Whatever does that mean?”
“That means that I write the number of my stars on a little paper.
And then I put this paper in a drawer and lock it with a key.”
“And that is all?”
“That is enough,” said the businessman.
The little prince finds that all this “…is of no great consequence…”, and he concludes thus:
“I myself own a flower, […] “which I water every day.
I own three volcanoes, which I clean out every week […]
It is of some use to my volcanoes,
and it is of some use to my flower,
that I own them.
But you are of no use to the stars...”
We find such behaviors in organizations:
There are those who “own” a “process,” adamantly “managing” a sort of measurement operation; they persist in their task red-facedly, look very busy, produce much information (or air of it), and are immersed in their mission, dedicated to their duty.
They seem very precise.
They have magnificent slidesets.
They preach their “methodology” in much detail over coffee and during lunch—if they ever break for any…
They argue about “their” facts, and they “guard” their little acre.
They put much effort into persuasion (of whom? of what?).
They are short-tempered with annoying little princes, who [innocently?] wonder what they do, what they measure, to what purpose…
Someday, this whole vain effort meets reality…
The businessman opened his mouth, but he found nothing to say in answer.
And the little prince went away.
Related posts:
The post title is borrowed from William Bruce Cameron’s
“Informal Sociology: A Casual Introduction to Sociological Thinking” [1963]:
“…not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted.”
Chapter XIII
Chapter X