I’ve met quite a few aspiring managers for whom the goal of life is to have other people working for they and bringing in the money while they do as little work as possible. I once partnered with a guy on a small business, only to find out he was like this. He kept talking about how his goal was to hire the most junior developers and pay them as little as possible while he only worked 1 hour per week and got to spend time with his family. I’d argue with him that this was exploitation but he called it “working smart”. Then he swindled me out of $20,000, which I guess was also “working smart”, and we parted ways, leaving him richer and me poorer. Lots of people seem to have the weird idea that morals don’t apply to business.
I’m watching The Walking Dead right now and it’s largely about how living under constant threat and competition causes people to become brutal to one another, and some go completely off the rails and become exploitative and cruel, while others hold on to some kind of ethics even after they are forced to do brutal things. Capitalism does something similar to people. Some resist exploiting others, but many have such weak ethics that their instinct for self-preservation and self-advancement crushes the good out of them.
I’ve met quite a few aspiring managers for whom the goal of life is to have other people working for they and bringing in the money while they do as little work as possible. I once partnered with a guy on a small business, only to find out he was like this. He kept talking about how his goal was to hire the most junior developers and pay them as little as possible while he only worked 1 hour per week and got to spend time with his family. I’d argue with him that this was exploitation but he called it “working smart”. Then he swindled me out of $20,000, which I guess was also “working smart”, and we parted ways, leaving him richer and me poorer. Lots of people seem to have the weird idea that morals don’t apply to business.
I’m watching The Walking Dead right now and it’s largely about how living under constant threat and competition causes people to become brutal to one another, and some go completely off the rails and become exploitative and cruel, while others hold on to some kind of ethics even after they are forced to do brutal things. Capitalism does something similar to people. Some resist exploiting others, but many have such weak ethics that their instinct for self-preservation and self-advancement crushes the good out of them.