Michael Lewis’ Moneyball isn’t really a book about baseball. Ostensibly, the work chronicles the unlikely pennant run of the Oakland Athletics in 2002—how a small-market squad (payroll $40M) stayed competitive with big-market Goliaths like the New York Yankees (payroll $125M). Lewis argues that the A’s accomplished their feat through an innovative approach to statistics. This meant thinking harder about what, exactly, contributes to success and how best to measure it—and that’s what the book is really about.1

It should be clear enough how the Moneyball Principle applies to life. Not that we should become insufferable stat-dorks—but we should consider very carefully what standards and metrics we use to evaluate ourselves. And not just individual people, but families, schools, churches, organizations of all sorts, and even countries should take this to heart.

The woes of the United States of America in the 21st century serve as a textbook example of how to fail the test. For several decades, we have lacked any coherent understanding of what it means to flourish as a country—besides for Gross Domestic Product and the Dow Jones Industrial Average. It’s hard to imagine a more subtly tragic fate that can befall a people. Using bad metrics is like trying to style your hair in front of a warped funhouse mirror: to make it look right in the mirror, you will have to make it look ridiculous in reality. We tailor policies to make the lines go up, without much consideration of why—we just know that it’s trouble if they don’t. But if the lines keep going up even as life in America gets worse—as it clearly has for at least a few decades—the time has come to rethink things.

Thankfully the rethinking seems to be happening. Bear with me as I detail one of the most important ways in which GDP falters.

Old World Mead and GDP

One sees more and more anti-alcohol sentiment from a growing chorus of those who have cut it out of their lives and encourage you do to the same. The neo-prohibitionists go so far as to claim that alcohol is fundamentally bad and unhealthy—quite a statement, if you consider how important wine has been in the Western experience since the beginning. It’s hard to believe that those who have partaken in the immemorial custom of drinking were always worse as a result. Didn’t the Lord himself drink wine?

And yet … though I didn’t want it to be true … the critics seemed to be on to something. Last year, my friends and I were growing troubled about feeling roughed up after even moderate consumption—but we came to a different thesis than the teetotalers. We suspected that the problem is the industrialized, mass-produced stuff available on our shelves, not alcohol itself. In other words, what we drink is not the same as what Jesus Christ drank.

So we decided to make our own. After some research and experimentation, we learned how to use the wild yeast method to brew delicious old world mead, without a doubt one of the best drinks I’ve ever had. Not just superior in taste—it’s just better for you: made in small batches with almost all local and organic ingredients, including fresh water from a nearby spring. Because we don’t pasteurize, our mead is a live beverage like kombucha and kefir. This means it still contains enzymes from the fermentation which help you to digest the mead with no hangovers or other ill effects. The buzz is truly something else. Drinking with your friends, you experience blood memories of the affectionate surge of the spirit your ancestors must have felt, not a sloppy or debilitating inebriation. In every single way that I can think of, our mead is so superior to anything in the liquor store that I would gladly pay double or triple what’s charged for a standard bottle of wine.

It makes my life materially better. But our mead doesn’t count toward GDP. Buying the cheap, headache-inducing stuff on offer at the grocery store certainly does, though.

Economists call this the difference between production for use and production for exchange. Things produced, grown, or cultivated for your own use—the fruits and vegetables from your garden, eggs laid by your backyard chickens, wares you made in your workshop—don’t involve an exchange of cash and thus don’t count.

On some level, we all know that production for use makes our lives better—not just because one’s mead is superior to the standard industrial alcohol, but because you grow through your productive projects. It’s almost as though the Lord made us to be more than mere consumers. But funhouse mirror metrics like Gross Domestic Product imply and encourage the opposite. According to the calculators of GDP, you do less good in making mead or planting a garden than just buying the stuff from the store. Consumption, not enterprise or initiative, is privileged through these metrics—and this privilege is reinforced through regulations and codes and all sorts of subtle engineering. All the better if you can multitask: consuming Gross Product (industrial alcohol, weed, Door Dash, etc) while consuming other Gross Product (Netflix, Disney+, etc).2

A very similar prejudice disregards the work of a whole category of people: homemakers. Stay-at-home mothers do not, according to GDP, contribute anything to The Economy. But if they send their children to daycare and head to the office themselves, they become contributors—and sure enough we tailor policy to encourage them, like tax credits for daycare expenses. Life is made worse, but GDP goes up.

This failure is disqualifying. And to be crystal clear: the problem is not just that GDP doesn’t measure “what matters in life.” It also fails to measure actual material prosperity. Yet we have enshrined it as our national idol.

Putting the Question to One’s Self

Replacing GDP with a better metric is a national project. On a personal level, the Moneyball Principle also challenges all thoughtful men to ask themselves, How will I measure my own success? Much is riding on the answer.

Real success is (obviously) difficult to quantify. A man must develop good judgment toward non-measurable realities—the highest realities—but there are a few more-or-less quantifiable standards that I’ve determined to be indications of whether I’m getting it right.

1) Number of Masses attended with a devout and attentive spirit. First things must come first.

2) Ride-or-die friends, family, and allies living nearby. Friends are an indication of success: you win friends by being someone that people want to be friends with, and by being a good friend yourself—generous, warm-hearted, loyal, engaging.

The part about “living nearby” is important. Distant friends are still friends of course, but they’re not the same as those who are physically close—FaceTime calls and text messages don’t substitute for proximity. This especially matters for those of us who sense political turbulence ahead. We need to be near our people. And proximity allows us to undertake common projects with our friends, like making mead, which make life better and friendships stronger.

3) Excellent books read, remembered, and taken to heart. A man lives well when he dedicates time and effort to real study, and is moved by the experience. This is what aristocrats do with their leisure. I especially want to spend time with heroes and those I admire. St Paul’s famous words from Philippians 4:8 sums up the case for excellent books: “Whatsoever things are true, whatsoever modest, whatsoever just, whatsoever holy, whatsoever lovely, whatsoever of good fame, if there be any virtue, if any praise of discipline, think on these things.”

4) Miles walked outdoors, preferably on scenic trails. Moments spent in contemplation and in motion are not just indications of success—again, the kind of thing an aristocrat does with his leisure—but they also bode well for other successes. (This is a theme for several of these standards.) Fresh air, sunshine, and movement do a man well. They clear the head and calm the nerves. Ideas come when walking. I’d even say there’s an ambition aroused while on a walk: I contemplate what could be, and grow hungry to make it happen. Walking at least three miles per day increases my chances in life.

5) Vigor and physical capabilities. I am not interested in merely being in “good shape” or “good-enough shape”; I aim to be a man of real prowess. This is a crucial part of my life and my projects.

One must rank and prioritize the different types of training—powerlifting, Olympic lifting, bodybuilding, athletics, combat. I am most interested in proficiency in combat. I want to be the best striker I can be. This is less easy to quantify than a one-rep max on the deadlift or a tape-measurement of the biceps, but a man can judge clearly whether he is developing his powers. He knows. The other aims of training—raw strength, explosiveness, and aesthetics—also matter to me but are not primary.

6) Services rendered. To be clear: the service I have in mind is not servile, and it goes hand in hand with becoming as capable as one can be—someone able to help because he’s the kind of man whose presence makes a difference. Service connects to all of the aims on this list. Vigor, for example: the strong man is able to be of greater use to others in a dozen ways, one of the most important being protection. Recall the line from The Song of Roland when Gautier de l’Hume tells Roland, “Never have I known fear when you were there.”

Conclusion

It would be great if my growth as a man brought trophies, prizes, honors, wealth, toys, conquests, and the like. But many of these are distributed just as liberally to fools as to true men. They sometimes have a flimsy connection to virtue and thus are questionable metrics. The ones I’ve highlighted above strike me as surer guides.

1

The simplest example: they determined that batting average is an overused and inadequate metric because it takes into account only hits and disregards walks. If the point is to put runners on base who can then score runs—which wins ball games—then a walk accomplishes much and ought to be considered. On-base percentage struck them as a better metric.

2

Just take a look at the Pandemic for an insight into what the authorities want for you.

https://thechivalryguild.substack.com/p/take-care-how-you-measure-success