Where throughput quotas exist, speed of processing becomes its own reward.

Evidence

This is not the case when workers have quotas to meet or business appointments to conduct. In these cases workers are rewarded by processing assignments more quickly since they will be able to enjoy or utilize for other purposes the time liberated by their efficiency. — Michael Lipsky, Street-Level Bureaucracy, 927

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines the incentive structure distinguishing quota-driven work from fixed-schedule work: saved time is banked, not reassigned.
• XREF: connects to: Economic theory embodied in devices performs and creates its own posited phenomena. — Donald MacKenzie, An Engine, Not a Camera: How Financial…, 1196; Self-optimization serves system efficiency, not the good life — Byung-Chul Han, Psychopolitics: Neoliberalism and New…, 71

Broader Connections

• Self-optimization serves system efficiency, not the good life #exemplifies (0.88) — Byung-Chul Han, Psychopolitics, 71
• Economic theory embodied in devices performs and creates its own posited phenomena. #exemplifies (0.85) — Donald MacKenzie, An Engine, Not a Camera, 1196