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> There’s many more inputs than just work-hours. Obviously, but if you consider those to be very similar at the top of some field, wouldn't you expect work-hou

> There’s many more inputs than just work-hours. Obviously, but if you consider those to be very similar at the top of some field, wouldn't you expect work-hours to be important in predicting the outcome? I'm sure you can draw clear lines between two individuals, but when you look at many people of similar ability, how much time they put in will most likely predict their results pretty well. > We build our institutions to guard against this. We do? Is there a thing where you can explain that you're as smart as other people and therefore it shouldn't matter that they work 5 days a week in some area and you only work one day, and that it's unfair that they produce more results than you and get the promotion/grant/whatever you compete for? I've never heard of it.

bumby 6y ago
The anti-trust example in the previous statement is one. It doesn't matter if someone is more successful, even if it's due solely to an extraordinary work ethic; societal institutions will artificially limit their market share. Sports is another example. Leagues put salary caps as well as minimum salaries to artificially limit compensation. Both sports and economics put these in place to provide a bulwark against such "natural laws" in favor of human defined ethics like fairness.
- luckylion 6y ago
  Those are extremely different things. There is no monopoly in academics or personal career. Sports is a terrible example imho, because most of the compensation isn't in the salary, it's in the ad contracts. > Both sports and economics put these in place to provide a bulwark against such "natural laws" in favor of human defined ethics like fairness. That's not at all why we have anti-trust laws. They are harmful to the economy, that's why. If they weren't, that is, if monopolists usually were more efficient in lowering prices/increasing quality/innovating than companies that had competitors, we'd have no issue with monopolies at all.
  - bumby 6y ago
    Fair enough on the anti-trust point. But societal institutions still put artificial limits, such as minimum wages. In different eras, the U.S. put maximum limits as well. The U.S. also limits profits in certain industries through regulated monopolies (e.g., insurance, utilities). It's a strange moving of the goal-posts to posit that sports doesn't count due to endorsements. There are also examples of leagues that limit these as well (UFC being one, although the case can be made this is of the managers interest). It becomes more pronounced in amateur levels (e.g., Olympics). The military is an institution that sometimes put numerous limits on one's professional career regardless of contribution. Someone above brought up E. Weinstein. He's been a vocal critic of how academic institutions use immigration institutions to artificially drive down labor rates. There are seemingly boundless examples of institutions either biasing or leveling outcomes. The larger point being institutions do put artificial limits on all kinds of interactions. These interactions have societal ethics forced upon them and don't exist in a libertarian vacuum consisting of only natural laws.
    - luckylion 6y ago
      I don't believe we do minimum wages for similar reasons either. We want people to be able to live (or, at the very least, survive), and we don't want to distort the markets by subsidizing their lives when working doesn't pay enough. But that has nothing to do with removing competition, or limiting competition to some areas, i.e. "natural talent" but forbidding to put more work in than your competitors. > It's a strange moving of the goal-posts to posit that sports doesn't count due to endorsements. If you go for total comp, endorsements is part of it. If you don't, you'll just see that the average salary in highly lucrative and competitive fields will sink and the stock options, bonuses etc for the top performers will increase. In both cases, the result is the same: the top performers get substantially more than the rest. The different is only whether you're trying to hide that fact by making them nominally earn close to the same, only to then give some of them the rest of the money in a different way. > The military is an institution that sometimes put numerous limits on one's professional career regardless of contribution. And they are also a very special case, with lots of intricacies and paranoia and not something that comes to mind when you ask people about rewarding merit and efficiency. Nobody is arguing that anything and everything must "only consist of natural laws". But to claim that something as basic as "more effort = more results" shouldn't be allowed to be real because it's too much of a natural law and has no place in civilized society sound ridiculous. It's fine if you want to argue that we shouldn't promote the top 1% of each year and murder the rest. I agree, and we don't. But to not consider the actual output of people competing for something because they might have put in different amount of hours? Should we have the Olympics add more classes where only people may compete against each other that were born on the same day and had their training supervised and limited to a reasonable amount achievable by every hobbyist for their whole life, to make sure that none of them had an "unfair advantage" by training harder or longer than the others?

bumby 6y ago

The anti-trust example in the previous statement is one. It doesn't matter if someone is more successful, even if it's due solely to an extraordinary work ethic; societal institutions will artificially limit their market share. Sports is another example. Leagues put salary caps as well as minimum salaries to artificially limit compensation. Both sports and economics put these in place to provide a bulwark against such "natural laws" in favor of human defined ethics like fairness.

luckylion 6y ago
Those are extremely different things. There is no monopoly in academics or personal career. Sports is a terrible example imho, because most of the compensation isn't in the salary, it's in the ad contracts. > Both sports and economics put these in place to provide a bulwark against such "natural laws" in favor of human defined ethics like fairness. That's not at all why we have anti-trust laws. They are harmful to the economy, that's why. If they weren't, that is, if monopolists usually were more efficient in lowering prices/increasing quality/innovating than companies that had competitors, we'd have no issue with monopolies at all.
- bumby 6y ago
  Fair enough on the anti-trust point. But societal institutions still put artificial limits, such as minimum wages. In different eras, the U.S. put maximum limits as well. The U.S. also limits profits in certain industries through regulated monopolies (e.g., insurance, utilities). It's a strange moving of the goal-posts to posit that sports doesn't count due to endorsements. There are also examples of leagues that limit these as well (UFC being one, although the case can be made this is of the managers interest). It becomes more pronounced in amateur levels (e.g., Olympics). The military is an institution that sometimes put numerous limits on one's professional career regardless of contribution. Someone above brought up E. Weinstein. He's been a vocal critic of how academic institutions use immigration institutions to artificially drive down labor rates. There are seemingly boundless examples of institutions either biasing or leveling outcomes. The larger point being institutions do put artificial limits on all kinds of interactions. These interactions have societal ethics forced upon them and don't exist in a libertarian vacuum consisting of only natural laws.
  - luckylion 6y ago
    I don't believe we do minimum wages for similar reasons either. We want people to be able to live (or, at the very least, survive), and we don't want to distort the markets by subsidizing their lives when working doesn't pay enough. But that has nothing to do with removing competition, or limiting competition to some areas, i.e. "natural talent" but forbidding to put more work in than your competitors. > It's a strange moving of the goal-posts to posit that sports doesn't count due to endorsements. If you go for total comp, endorsements is part of it. If you don't, you'll just see that the average salary in highly lucrative and competitive fields will sink and the stock options, bonuses etc for the top performers will increase. In both cases, the result is the same: the top performers get substantially more than the rest. The different is only whether you're trying to hide that fact by making them nominally earn close to the same, only to then give some of them the rest of the money in a different way. > The military is an institution that sometimes put numerous limits on one's professional career regardless of contribution. And they are also a very special case, with lots of intricacies and paranoia and not something that comes to mind when you ask people about rewarding merit and efficiency. Nobody is arguing that anything and everything must "only consist of natural laws". But to claim that something as basic as "more effort = more results" shouldn't be allowed to be real because it's too much of a natural law and has no place in civilized society sound ridiculous. It's fine if you want to argue that we shouldn't promote the top 1% of each year and murder the rest. I agree, and we don't. But to not consider the actual output of people competing for something because they might have put in different amount of hours? Should we have the Olympics add more classes where only people may compete against each other that were born on the same day and had their training supervised and limited to a reasonable amount achievable by every hobbyist for their whole life, to make sure that none of them had an "unfair advantage" by training harder or longer than the others?