"... On Jul 20, 5:19 am, archytas <[email protected]> wrote: ..."
> I have a feeling the Peter Principle was written in the late 50's > Gruff. I always objected to it because it suggested people were > promoted because they were ever good at something. I'm not sure if you're against promoting people who are good at something or what. > I favour > cooperatives and think we should restrict pay and other earnings to > individuals, but I'm not happy with centralised government squandering > the capital produced. I don't believe restricting pay and earnings to individuals would ever work in a real world sense. It goes against the nature of the beast and would, I believe, result in a huge backlash against such restrictions. Hell, even the generally docile populace of China are rebelling for higher wages and better working conditions. I think it's part of the human genome that we are competitive. > It breaks my back these days using hand tools > to dig my vegetable garden. This produces about a quarter of our > food. Technology has brought massive productivity rises, meaning we > should have more leisure and so on. I don't want some Indonesian guy > breaking his back on my behalf. I think economics should start in such > considerations. It's true. We do have more leisure today than at any previous time in our history ... at least we in the developed world do, and the emerging nations are quickly catching up. Nor am I against someone across the sea or even here at home busing his back on my behalf. One way or another, his or her labor is voluntary and paid so I don't have any guilt about it. In turn, I have often labored for wage and at times even for food so that someone else might have leisure. It's the way of the world and economics could be no different than what it is: a system whereby land and labor can produce a profit. I could see complaining about how the profits wind up being concentrated into the hands of a very few, but is that also not the way things are? I don't believe we could ever change our ways sufficiently to create and sustain ourselves in a system that does not include competition and reward for labor.
