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Politics : A US National Health Care System? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Mary Cluney who wrote (2782)	11/8/2007 11:11:38 PM
From: TimF	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 42652

A fair number of people have some degree of passion for their job. But a majority of them wouldn't be doing it for free, at least not if they aren't wealthy or don't have another source of income. And its not just that the baker bakes bread for the specific motivation of getting cash. He makes bread in response to the market demand. He'll bake so many of these types of loaves, and so many of that type. In the meanwhile someone else might not be able to bake bread as well or as efficiently, and even if he has some degree of passion he won't do it professionally, and his main efforts at making money can go somewhere else. Its not just desire for profit providing motivation, its that desire for profit that causes a response to price signals which give information about the right amount of bread to be produced. To much bread, or too much bread of one type and the price would drop or inventory would go unsold. Neither general desire to help the world, nor a passion for a particular craft are as reliable of motivators as desire for profit. Only a small minority of people are going to work hard and long to help the world for little or no compensation, and passions can change and might not be for the things people need. But even if we could count on people being motivated by these things, and we didn't have to worry about the motivation from profit, these things still don't convey or respond to the information from price signals and to much or too little of all sorts of things would be produced if we relied primarily on such motivations. Passion combined with profit motive can produce more regular excellence than either of them alone. Charitable desires, if wisely directed, are also a great and useful thing. But neither can practically replace the profit motive as a reliable way for use to have most of the goods and services we need or want.