To Each a Job According to Ability to Pay Cash Under the Table to the Employer

[Boojatta]

It would be nice to think that people could be hired based on merit. However, if investors get profits from simply investing money wisely, then they are considered to be exploiters. If investors are forbidden from getting profits from simply investing money wisely, then they have no incentive to invest money.

To ensure that enough money is invested, it might be necessary to demand investments as a condition of employment. In that case, a worker's anticipated performance on the job would be balanced with the worker's ability and willingness to cough up cash to invest in the organization.

Consider a society ruled by people who adhere to a particular economic ideology. In particular, consider a totalitarian society in which the moral accusation of exploitation is the foundation of the society's economic and political structure. In such a society, all managerial authority is likely to be delegated directly or indirectly by the political authorities.

Even a one-party state has factional struggles because there are, at all levels in the hierarchy of authority, alternatives to the people who currently have authority. However, managers cannot predict the long-term outcome of factional struggles. New authorities above them in the hierarchy are likely to make patronage appointments to reward people who helped in the factional struggles. How can a manager avoid being replaced by a patronage appointment?

Are people who are higher than a particular manager in the hierarchy of authority likely to care about whether or not the manager is economically effective? What incentive do they have to appoint someone who will provide efficient economic management? Are they likely to even care whether or not a manager is corrupt?

When a job applicant pays money to get hired, the manager has an incentive to give the money to higher authorities for their own personal consumption. That will increase the manager's job security. Alternatively, the manager might keep the money for the manager's own personal consumption.

[A HERETIC I AM]

1. For the life of me, I can't figure out if you are serious or just thinking with your fingertips

What is it you are driving at? This post has several non-sequiters that are confusing as hell

It would be nice to think that people could be hired based on merit.

Do you think people are NOT hired on the basis of merit?

However, if investors get profits from simply investing money wisely, then they are considered to be exploiters. If investors are forbidden from getting profits from simply investing money wisely, then they have no incentive to invest money.

Damn straight. What would be the point of investing money in a company if you were forbidden from realizing a gain on that investment? And certain people on DU notwithstanding, who considers wise investors "exploiters"?

To ensure that enough money is invested, it might be necessary to demand investments as a condition of employment. In that case, a worker's anticipated performance on the job would be balanced with the worker's ability and willingness to cough up cash to invest in the organization.

It MIGHT be necessary, but as long as there is a free, open and transparent marketplace for investors, there will not be any shortage of capital. You are suggesting an applicant for a job BE REQUIRED TO PAY to get hired? If you paid money to secure a job, how the hell do you figure there is any incentive to perform afterward? Paying money to be hired could just as easily (and quite likely) be construed as not needing to perform. Why should I? I paid to get this job. What is it to them if I only make 195 widgets and hour instead of the 200 they want?

Consider a society ruled by people who adhere to a particular economic ideology. In particular, consider a totalitarian society in which the moral accusation of exploitation is the foundation of the society's economic and political structure. In such a society, all managerial authority is likely to be delegated directly or indirectly by the political authorities.

No thanks. Such a system is doomed to fail. You aren't seriously suggesting totalitarianism is a viable socio-economic structure, are you?

Are people who are higher than a particular manager in the hierarchy of authority likely to care about whether or not the manager is economically effective? What incentive do they have to appoint someone who will provide efficient economic management? Are they likely to even care whether or not a manager is corrupt?

Of course. The incentive is called profit and competition. If someone who is hired is damaging to the company, it will affect the company's ability to effectively compete in the marketplace.

When a job applicant pays money to get hired, the manager has an incentive to give the money to higher authorities for their own personal consumption. That will increase the manager's job security. Alternatively, the manager might keep the money for the manager's own personal consumption.

How the hell do you figure? What is the incentive for the manager to give the money away? His own job security? What if he paid money upfront to get his job? Should he keep on paying instead of getting paid? This sounds as if you want the money to flow upward from the worker to upper management. Would that not just keep the bottom rung poor and desperate? They have to continue to pay the manager above them?

Sorry, but this sounds like a bunch of ideological claptrap that has no basis in reality, much less business.

Edited cause I hit "post" too early.

[Boojatta]

2. For now, just one thing.

And certain people on DU notwithstanding, who considers wise investors "exploiters"?

As of this moment, the only participants in this thread are certain people on DU, specifically: you and me.

[A HERETIC I AM]

3. LOL...fair enough.

Boojatta, really, I am curious where you are trying to go here. I am always open to new ideas and i don't mean to sound critical (although I know many of my posts read that way) so if you can clarify what you have in mind, I'm interested in reading it.

Remembering your other thread about the new kind of stock market, I think it is important to bear in mind that greed is a major factor in markets, be it a bazaar in ancient Mesopotamia or the Pork Bellies pit at the New York Mercantile Exchange. It is also a major motivating force for personal effort. If we could all live comfortably and healthily wearing a fig leaf and picking berries, we just might. But sooner or later, someone is going to try and corner the fig leaf market. It's just human nature. Incentive is maximized in part by the possibility of profit or success or advancement or all 3. Trying to do away with incentive is, in my opinion, something that will increase failure or non-participation.

[Boojatta]

4. The thread about a new kind of stock exchange was

proposing an additional kind of stock exchange, not the abolition of existing stock exchanges.

This thread is an attempt to examine the dynamics of a certain kind of totalitarianism. I'm not advocating it, but simply examining it.