From: pcollac@pyrnova.mis.pyramid.com (Paul Collacchi)
Newsgroups: sci.econ,talk.politics.misc
Subject: Re: Success or greed? (was Re: Supply-side economics)
Date: 9 Sep 92 23:37:34 GMT
Reply-To: pcollac@pyrnova.mis.pyramid.com (Paul Collacchi)
Distribution: usa
Organization: Pyramid Technologies, Mt. View, California.

In article <1992Sep9.140737.3998@desire.wright.edu>,
demon@desire.wright.edu (Stupendous Man) writes:
|> In article <183436@pyramid.pyramid.com>,
pcollac@pyrnova.mis.pyramid.com (Paul Collacchi) writes:
 
|> 	Get the point?
|> 
|> > No indication whatsoever that high income earners do well with 
|> > this.  In fact one study (no scientific tour-de-force) which allowed
|> > individuals to assess their own personal success showed no
|> > correlation between income and success.  On average, on a scale of
|> > 1 to 5, 5 being the highest, most respondants gave their life a 2.8.
|> 
|> 	I tell you what.  Conduct your feel-good polls till you are blue in the
|> face, and see whether or not there is a correlation between self-affirmation
|> and feeding the family.

The point is, that the "top 20" percentile in "income making" are hardly 
motivated by feeding the family.  Presumably they have "enough" money to
purchase everything they want. There is no "economic motivation."

Then what does motivate them?  Maybe they "feel good" to make high incomes.
Maybe they "feel good" winning.  Maybe they "feel good" by being the "boss". 
Maybe they "feel good" trying to contribute to the economy.

The point is, that they are attempting to alter their "inner" state to one
which "feels good" -- "feels good" determined by them.  They do they by
attempting to manipulate the outer state in some way.  This is called 
"the pleasure principal".  It is a human behavior.  There is no "economic"
behavior, only human behaviour which projects itself onto economic symbols.
  
|> 
|> 	Economic success (hey, you knew we were talking about that, right?) is
|> largely measured by return on investment.

No.  Brett, for *you* to qualify the word "success" with the adjective 
"economic" is indeed quite a step.  I'm flattered that you're altering your
terminology and refining your perceptions to include non-economic types of
success.

|> 
|> > People knock high-earners for being greedy.  I think there's more to it.
|> > I think there are components of power, control (and "true" success)
as well.
|> > It's a good question as to whether we want some of the most
imbalanced people
|> > charged with making some of the highest impact decisions.  I
certainly don't.
|> 
|> 	Ahhh, those evil money loving Jews, eh?
|> 
|> Brett                                                      

No. Again, the word "power" in this context means power to alter their state
to a pleasurable one and keep it there.  Some people feel as if they "lose"
power or feel uncomfortable when not "in control."  To me, power is the ability
to manifest intention, not necessarily to dominate others.

Imbalanced simply means  "focused on one thing."  My experience is that I can
be "good" at something fairly naturally and easily, but I cannot be in the
upper whatever percentile without dedication, focus, intention, and practice.
I assume therefore that most of the best income earners are there because they
intend it, because they practice it, and have developed the skill set necessary
to accomplish it.  Since acquiring this skill set has probably commanded a 
good deal of time, and therefore *other* skill sets are probably lacking, since
they have not been practiced.

The question then becomes, do people with good skills at earning incomes
necessarily making "good" business decision (for the company) and will 
the aggregate of such decisions result in a system which manifests "good
for most."  The answer is probably not.  The system will probably exhibit
the symptom that decision makers make decisions which seem to help themselves
most.  Gee, what a surprise.  It looks a lot like this one.

The suggestion is clear:  if one wanted a system which did the most good
for the most people, it would seek to give decision-making to those who
manifested the skill of being able to successfully make decisions which
demonstrably helped others.

Paul Collacchi