James Tobin wrote:

>Since it is hard to know what a person deserves, in all fairness, it is
>rather too bad no one argued "from each according to ability, to each
>according to need." But since nobody does argue that principle, lets just
>take another glance at the market for conductors.

The reason no-one argues that principle is because it doesn't get us any
further either.  What is 'need'? That's just as subjective as 'deserve'.
Also that principle is utopian: it assumes that everyone has an impeccable
sense of honour and a strong work ethic.  If you give everyone what they
need (assuming for the moment that this can be objectively measured)
regardless of the work they do, then you're removing one very strong work
incentive.  Now I'm not saying that everything only revolves around money.
It may very well be that many musicians are so driven by the impulse to
compose or to perform that they'll do their best regardless of what they
are paid.  But many jobs also involve boredom and drudgery, and are done
to a not negligible extent for the money.  If there's no correlation at
all between the work done and the financial reward, you've got trouble:
you've either got to accept lower productivity and quality, or you've got
to resort to other means of getting people going: such as drilling them
ideologically or using direct compulsion.

Felix Delbruck
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