from: Shadow Dancing on the Grave of Hope:
Conclusion: Wherein it is shown that ignoring the Iron Law of Contingencies will always result in failure OR When you ignore the fundamentals, you’ll always be fundamentally wrong
Ensuring that incentives will work means that efforts to improve one’s well-being will result in lasting improvement which can be retained, safe from taxation or other kinds of confiscation. The incentive lattice may be complex to some, but it’s simple: “If I work diligently and intelligently will it benefit me enough beyond my effort to make me want to continue?”
Thomas Kuhn, a philosopher of science, points out that science moves ahead by a series of Paradigm Shifts–important enough to get capitalized–where the assumptions of the “new” science are substantially different from those of the “old”. For example, the Earth was once regarded as the center of the Universe. This model, although incorrect, explained a lot of Heavenly motion, but the “Earth revolves around the Sun” explains more. So it will be, I predict, for the notion of the importance of Incentives–capitalization–in the explanation of human affairs.
This is a small book about three large, connected concepts. The first is the human tendency to substitute INTEND and/or IS for DOES. The INTEND-IS-DOES distinction is pervasive because contentment with mistaking an intention or activity for a result bedevils much of human activity. Many persons allow themselves to be deceived or deceive themselves by one of the most primitive errors of human understanding. This tendency is overwhelming when the incentive structure is wrong, as in publically funded enterprises where spending money obtained by coercion produces great, inevitable inefficiency accompanied by unending propaganda about outcome. The coercion starts with tax acquisition and in some enterprises, such as public education, extends to coerced participation. Unforced commerce does not have this property and has a fighting chance for effectiveness. Each party in an unforced interaction has the expectation of a positive results because no one would enter unforced interaction with the expectation of loss. The second is the overriding importance of incentives in producing effective outcomes in any activity, including the social sciences. You get what you reinforce, and you don’t get what you don’t reinforce. The third is the untapped potential of useful programs in many fields of human social services.
Cheerio and ttfn,
Grant Coulson
