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 [log in to unmask]