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Path: utzoo!laura
From: laura@utzoo.UUCP (Laura Creighton)
Newsgroups: net.philosophy
Subject: Re: Drifting sideways into economics
Message-ID: <4065@utzoo.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 12-Jul-84 03:52:50 EDT
Article-I.D.: utzoo.4065
Posted: Thu Jul 12 03:52:50 1984
Date-Received: Thu, 12-Jul-84 03:52:50 EDT
References: <4039@utzoo.UUCP>, <204@mit-athena.ARPA>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
Lines: 64

Whenever you divide a job that has been held down by one person
into a job that is held down by two people then you have taken a job that
could have been held by the better of the two and forced it to be held by
the poorer of the two for half the time. If you do not want to do this then
why are you dividing things up in the first place? 

It is not the case of taking the first person you meet on the street
and giving them half of my job, thus filling it with someone who is
almost certain to be incompetant; this will happen no matter who
you get to take half of my job -- if they are crummier at it than I am
then I should get to keep all of my job, and if they are better at it
than I am then they should get the whole thing.

*	*	*	*	*

There are always people who are in jobs that they do not like, and take
no pride in. There seems to be two main cases of jobs involved here:
the sort of job that almost nobody seems to take any pride in (which
I think are the first jobs that should be automated, given a choice)
and the sort of jobs where some people take pride in, but a lot of 
other people don't. You have to wonder about these other people. Why are they
in a job that they can take no pride in? 

If it is the case that they are not going to take pride in any job that
they hold down then they are more or less a lost cause. If, on the other
hand, they are instead not in a job that they can take pride in, they
should find a different job. Dividing work around is not going to
help these people; what they lack is either the confidence or the
motivation to get a new job, or the finances necessary to live on while
they train for a new job, or the skill to discover what sort of job they
would take pride in. All of thse problems are not adressed by taking
jobs (or parts of jobs) away from people. You only harm the people who
already are happy with their jobs.

*	*	*	*	*

I want to get paid for doing good work. If I am not getting paid for
doing good work, then I am a parasite who lives off the efforts of
others. I can not live for free. Somewhere, somebody has to earn
the moeny that I use to buy food and clothing and pay rent. If you
pay me for doing non productive things then you must get that money from
somewhere.

Your trip to see the Nebula sounds like a lot of fun. But it costs money.
You can either earn enough money to pay for you way on that trip, or
convince a lot of people that it is in their interest to pay for you
to take that trip, or take money under force or threat of force away
from people to pay for your trip. I find the third alternative morally
unacceptable. I can't think of a single thing that is worth doing which
is not worth getting paid for -- though I can think of quite a few things
which it would be difficult to persuade other people to pay for! But,
in principle at any rate, it could be possible to find somebody who would
be willing to pay me to do the things that I otherwise would do for fun
and not get paid for -- I know people who get paid vacation leaves, for
instance.

What is so wrong with work that you see it opposed to the human spirit?
Or what is so wrong with these endeavors of the human spirit that I
should not get paid for them? I believe that thinking is an activity
of the huamn spirit and that is what I get paid for now, after all.


Laura Creighton
utzoo!laura