M It would be interesting to know if the most enduring and productive corporations are led by assholes, or if, suppressing the competition within corporations leads to better corporations.
n Nicholas S. Thompson Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology Clark University http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ -----Original Message----- From: Friam [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Marcus G. Daniels Sent: Saturday, April 12, 2014 8:46 AM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Openness amplifies Inequality? On 4/11/14, 10:44 PM, Nick Thompson wrote: > Then some poultry husbandry professor got a bright idea. Instead of > breeding chickens by the individual, he bred and selected them by the > cage, so that it was the best CAGES that got to parent the next generation. If you want to extend this metaphor to democratic capitalism, then the cages that get to parent the next generation are the successful corporations. They get to define what is meritorious by controlling the wealth and by having the means to lobby the government. They also get to choose the individuals in the cage (their hires). Note the selection criteria for the cages is also `their' criteria (e.g. stock price), not some multi-objective criteria that would perhaps better serve the whole set pool of people that are caged-up, as it were. If you want to interpret the metaphor more literally, then I think you have to imagine there are central planners, such as in the U.S.S.R. Otherwise there is not the distinction between the breeders and the bred. If I'm a super chicken and I'm looking across the aisle at which cages are being selected, I may dial back my ruthless pecking so that the more ordinary chickens add a few eggs to the cage total. I mean, I'm a super chicken so I can size-up that situation. Keep the peace in the cage by making it clear to the other chickens know they could end up dead, or half dead, but without actually doing it. I'll also estimate that my offspring will be pretty good at laying eggs and at pecking, if it comes to that, and that this can continue. And, if I'm planning things out well enough, I may have counted how many cages are at my facility and done some arithmetic to guess at how many eggs it produces, and use that as a guess for the demand for eggs. If there is only a need for 1000 eggs, why should I participate in a process that can yield 100,000 eggs? That would undermine the grand plan above. Marcus ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
