Over-achievement: Sinful?

[DIY]

Is over-achievement a sin?

Here's what I don't mean by that: 'Is over-achievement listed as a sin in some book of law?'
To reiterate, the above question is irrelevant.

Here's what I do mean by that: 'Is over-achievement a practice that is harmful to one or many people in a given society?'

Here's a short story to illustrate my reason for asking:

At a certain point in time, ten men work in a field, planting and harvesting crops by hand. These ten men do the work of ten men, and reap the benefits of ten men, and each keeps one tenth of the spoils, because each did one tenth of the work. Each of the ten 'deserves' one tenth: he put in one tenth, thus he gets out one tenth.

At a later point in time, one of the men has a great idea. He goes and cuts down a tree, cuts the pieces up, and creates a plow. He goes out and expends the exact same amount of energy he had before - one tenth of a share of work - but manages to plant half the crops. The field is only so large, so the other 9 men are left with 5 shares of work that is left to do - each does one eighteenth of the work, and thus only expends one eighteenth of the normal amount of energy. One man does a full day's work, and 9 men do partial work and enjoy the afternoon off, because there was simply not enough work to do.

So all the spoils still exist. All the benefits are still reaped. But because one man planted half the crop - with no extra energy involved on his part - one man 'deserves' half the spoils - he put in half, he gets out half. The other 9 men now get out less than they would have, when no one worked any harder than normal.

Thus we have a problem. The plowman accomplished more than he needed to do. He hasn't stolen product; he has stolen work. By our definition of 'deserve', he really only deserves a tenth of the product; he only put in a tenth, he should get out a tenth. Why the disparity? Because the amount of product he created no longer equates to the amount of work he did.

You could say that he put in extra work to make a plow - but you could also say the plow itself is part of the spoils. Thus that extra work is already accounted for.


The question, rephrased, is this: is it a sin to steal work?

Let's open this up: not just in the case of the influence of technology. This could apply to any time one person does more work than is necessary, at the expense of another's ability to work. Maybe someone does overtime and finishes someone else's tasks, depriving them of paid hours the next day. Maybe a woman works extra hard - takes care of her own accounting - so that she doesn't have to hire extra help at the office for bookkeeping.

Is it a sin to overachieve?

 

[Ringel05]

Your story is a perfect example of a false dichotomy. But whatchagonnado?

 

[editec]

And now that only 6 men are needed, what ought to be done to those now unemployed workers?

Should they starve?

 

[California Girl]

If idiocy was a sin, the OP would be in trouble with the Big Guy.

 

[Avatar4321]

So how does someone do the put in the same effort and do 5xs the work?

The math doesn't compute.

And that's why the innovative worker should buy his own land and reap his own reward.

 

[Avatar4321]

And no, being industrious is not a sin. Being idle and lazy is though.

 

[Ringel05]

And now that only 6 men are needed, what ought to be done to those now unemployed workers?

Should they starve?

Clear and work more fields?

 

[Avatar4321]

And now that only 6 men are needed, what ought to be done to those now unemployed workers?

Should they starve?

Clear and work more fields?

Crazy idea, eh?

 

[DIY]

Ok the idea that we can just find another field eludes the metaphor and defeats the point of this example. Let's pretend - for arguments sake - that we're dealing with a society where all the fertile land is accounted for (like the known Earth).

The point: even if there is enough food, there may not be enough jobs. Even in a world devoid of corruption or laziness, there would inevitably exist this logistical problem, as long as innovation persisted.

 

[Avatar4321]

Ok the idea that we can just find another field eludes the metaphor and defeats the point of this example. Let's pretend - for arguments sake - that we're dealing with a society where all the fertile land is accounted for (like the known Earth).

The point: even if there is enough food, there may not be enough jobs. Even in a world devoid of corruption or laziness, there would inevitably exist this logistical problem, as long as innovation persisted.

Metaphors are worthless if they aren't comparable to reality.

There will always be work for us to do. We just need to find it.

 

[krogers521]

The other four could go out and provide clothing, cook,clean up the cave, look after the children etc. Life is not as simple as u portray but if the same time was put in to the community as a whole, they should all reap the benefits equally, anybody not working could be provided necessites if couldn't work. Laziness should never be rewarded .

 

[uscitizen]

And now that only 6 men are needed, what ought to be done to those now unemployed workers?

Should they starve?

Clear and work more fields?

And once the fields are all cleared?
And machines replace most of the workers?

Clearly an unsustainable model.

Ans yes laziness should never be rewarded, but neither should eliminating jobs to make MORE profit either.

 

[Avatar4321]

And now that only 6 men are needed, what ought to be done to those now unemployed workers?

Should they starve?

Clear and work more fields?

And once the fields are all cleared?
And machines replace most of the workers?

Clearly an unsustainable model.

Ans yes laziness should never be rewarded, but neither should eliminating jobs to make MORE profit either.

Of course not. We should all live in tribes, wear loin cloths, and gather berries and fruit to live off of.

 

[Skull Pilot]

And now that only 6 men are needed, what ought to be done to those now unemployed workers?

Should they starve?

Clear and work more fields?

Grow more than they need, keep what they use put the rest on the market and by doing so create jobs transporting the surplus to other areas. Create jobs in those other areas by having people sell their goods for a commission. etc.

amazing how the free market works.

 

[DIY]

Grow more than they need, keep what they use put the rest on the market and by doing so create jobs transporting the surplus to other areas. Create jobs in those other areas by having people sell their goods for a commission. etc.

amazing how the free market works.

Alright so now we're taking looking at a larger picture. Let's go even larger then. You've now 'created jobs' by 'putting surplus on the market'. This assumes that someone is buying the surplus. Let's do the math:

10 guys on farm A, 10 guys on farm B. All inputs to this system are in units of 'percent of work done'. All outputs (the spoils) are in units of 'percent of food received'. In other words, for a given farm, there are 100 total 'work done' units (wd's), and 100 total 'food received' units (fr's). For handwork, 10wd returns 10fr. One unit of work gets one unit of food. But for machine work, 10wd returns 50fr. With a machine, you get more bang for your buck, so to speak.

Guy 1A (the innovator of farm A) supplies 10wd and receives 50fr. Guys 2A through 10A (the hand-workers of farm A) each know that the max they can receive is a ninth of what's left... 50/9 = 5.56fr each. So each puts in the amount of work that will pay them that - 5.56wd. The farm is now maxed out of possible food, but not maxed out of possible work.

So let's say these guys aren't lazy. They want to put the rest of their energy to good use. If the normal amount of work is 10wd, and they've only spent 5.56wd, then they've got 10-5.56 = 4.44wd left over. What can they do to turn that 4.44wd into 4.44fr, and thus make ends meet?

Well let's pause for a bit, and look at farm B. At farm B, the same thing is happening. Guy 1B worked his day's work and got a whopping 50fr for it. Guys 2B through 10B are griping because of the measly 5.56fr they got, not to mention the boredom associated with a leftover 4.44wd. Guy 1B has an idea: he can invest his fr in a transportation business, and make even more fr, without having to even expend any more wd. What a genius idea! So he calls up all his buddies, guys 2B-10B, and offers them a job. They strap on their running shoes, gather up the surplus, and run it over to farm A, each expending half of what he's got left in him (so as not to be considered lazy). They'll need the other half for the return trip. So they go up to the guys on farm A and offer their goods.

See a problem? There's only so much fr in the total system. Even though Guy 1B branches out, there's not enough capital or demand in farm A. None of the handworkers are gonna buy, because they can't afford it. And Guy 1A sure isn't gonna buy, because he already has a surplus himself!

But let's say the goods are different - farm B has bread and farm A has vegetables. Now Guy 1A has incentive to buy. He buys all he can, in fact. Pays 40fr worth of veggies for 20fr worth of bread. The transportation team takes the 40fr of veggies and the 20fr of leftover bread (60fr total) back to farm B to divide up the spoils of their labor. Of course, Guy 1B keeps his initial investment of 40fr, plus a small bonus of 5fr. The remaining 15fr of bread and veggies gets divided up amongst Guys 2B through 10B - each one gets 15/10 = 1.5fr.

But wait a minute! Those guys expended the full remainder of their efforts - all 4.44wd - and only got 1.5fr back. In other words, the transportation industry pays less than a day's wage for a day's work.

Totals: everybody on farm B does a full day's work of 10wd. 1B makes 55fr, and 2B-10B each make 5.56+1.5 = 7.06fr. Even though they did a full day's work, they're still under-nourished. At least it's a balanced diet.

On farm A, it's even worse. Guy 1A does a full day's work and gets back 50-20 = 30fr. He's content. But 2A-10A are completely left out of this equation - nobody had a job for them to expend their 4.44wd leftovers, they couldn't afford foreign goods, and they only made 5.56fr of domestic product (veggies). 90% of the population of A is now starving and malnourished. Not to mention they have too much time on their hands.

But if you're starving, you're gonna spend that extra energy some way or another. So with all their down time, they decide they'll put their efforts towards stealing from Guy 1A. Only problem is, Guy 1A spent half his surplus on foreign goods. So even with stealing, there's not enough to go around. One guy has a bright idea - kill Guy 1A, then there's only 9 people on the farm, and none of those people are using plows. Plenty of work, plenty of food. Just like old times.

Reflection time:
In the real world, things are obviously much more complex. Does anyone think that if we just complicate things, these fundamental logistical problems will just disappear? If anything, inefficiency increases with complexity - the real world will be much worse. The guys with the surplus don't add capital to they system by selling their surplus. They only redistribute the existing capital - and take a little bit out. Capital cannot be added to the system, any more than energy can be added to the universe. Throwing in planes, trains, automobiles, and all the mechanics and inventors and designers and electricians that go with them, does not add capital to the system. 'Creating jobs' can never bring the working class back up to par income. Job creation is just a bandaid on the problem of innovation.

What this means: laziness and corruption are not the causes of poverty. Hard work and innovation are not the solution to poverty. The only way for everyone to have a chance at a fair share is if people simply don't over-achieve or innovate; or, if those that do innovate give their proceeds away for free; or if the poor can expend their energy entertaining the rich... which of those options is least artificial and most ethical?