Profit Motive?

**Strelok** · July 10, 2010, 04:39 AM

Do you think other motive(s) could work devoid of the profit motive or minimizing the profit motive? This video is interesting to watch, although is probably ultimately biased. It concludes that the profit motive is best for rudimentary tasks but is bad for creativity and complexity.

**Big War Bird** · July 10, 2010, 07:24 AM

People are not motivated strictly by money??!?!?!

I award you a prize!

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

**Strelok** · July 10, 2010, 09:12 AM

Originally Posted by Big War Bird

People are not motivated strictly by money??!?!?!

I award you a prize!

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

WAT!?

I've been giving my cousin $20 per command he listens to but it's possible he might have done it regardless? Blasphemy! Burn the liberal!

**Big War Bird** · July 10, 2010, 04:11 PM

Originally Posted by Strelok

WAT!?

I've been giving my cousin $20 per command he listens to but it's possible he might have done it regardless? Blasphemy! Burn the liberal!

That money isn't the only way to motivate people is no secret and it is also no secret that people whose primary/only motivation don't often excel.

**Pickle_mole** · July 10, 2010, 12:59 PM

Nature has no free lunches, everyone must work and struggle. Money allows us to buy lunch. Money AKA profit is just the physical embodiment of your labor.

**Saturn** · July 10, 2010, 09:38 PM

Originally Posted by Pickle_mole

Money AKA profit is just the physical embodiment of your labor.

Not the current "money" system we have...

**Rolling Thunder** · July 11, 2010, 01:54 PM

Originally Posted by Pickle_mole

Nature has no free lunches, everyone must work and struggle. Money allows us to buy lunch. Money AKA profit is just the physical embodiment of your labor.

Your statement is both irrelevant to the discussion and dull at the same. We are not discussing the validity of the profit motive, merely the idea that the profit motive is the sole motivator of creativity and cognition, and indeed whether it is as successful a motivator as others.

**747823** · July 11, 2010, 11:08 AM

My conclusion is to abolish the profit motive as the leading incentive and be more of a minority incentive. The profit motive destroys creativity and the actual quality of products.

**Poach** · July 13, 2010, 07:45 AM

Originally Posted by 747823

My conclusion is to abolish the profit motive as the leading incentive and be more of a minority incentive. The profit motive destroys creativity and the actual quality of products.

I'm sorry but this is incorrect. I have nothing against communist/anarchist political theory as a whole but you're clearly blindly regurgitating something you've read on some leftist site without even thinking it through.

If the profit motive destroyed the quality of products, capitalism (ie, the system based upon acquisition of profit) would produce solely low-quality goods, which it does not. Every industry has large, thriving companies that make first class produce. This, in turn, allows them to sell it for more, granting them profit.

In relation to the thread: Many motives are present in life. The profit motive manifests itself in the prime motive usually only in business. Other aspects of life are driven by other motives.

**Saturn** · July 11, 2010, 01:58 PM

Profit is really only one of an infinite number of human motivators. A child could tell you this. I don't really see what we are supposed to arguing.

**Denny Crane!** · July 12, 2010, 04:43 PM

Profit is definitely not the only motivator, it is the most important one but there are many others. My primary motivator is to do something fantastic and create an institution that makes real change in peoples lives but I'm damn well going to pay my mortgage first and that is what keeps the worlds turning and allows me to have my dreams.

Profit is what makes sure there is a loaf of bread in my corner shop, a bank to get me a mortgage and everything else is gravy.

**Dodge** · July 13, 2010, 04:43 AM

Originally Posted by Denny Crane!

Profit is what makes sure there is a loaf of bread in my corner shop, a bank to get me a mortgage and everything else is gravy.

Because everyone loves a mortgage!

**Denny Crane!** · July 13, 2010, 03:05 PM

Originally Posted by Dodge

Because everyone loves a mortgage!

Well yeah pretty much, it is the great thing most people get along with babies and a long term relationship. Very significant in life as a symbol more than the thing, though getting that first decent piece of bricks and mortar that is yours is quite something else, even more so if it contains a plot of land. Getting my own 40ft hawthorn tree was something I must admit.

**Saturn** · July 12, 2010, 04:45 PM

Profit is what makes sure there is a loaf of bread in my corner shop, a bank to get me a mortgage and everything else is gravy.

I dread the thought of having to take out a mortgage. It almost seems like robbery to me. At the same time, so does renting.

**Denny Crane!** · July 12, 2010, 04:50 PM

Originally Posted by Saturn

I dread the thought of having to take out a mortgage. It almost seems like robbery to me. At the same time, so does renting.

Well in many ways property is over inflated but if you are willing to pay that price then a mortgage is generally a good deal. Unfortunately land is scarce and it is generally a brilliant investment, especially if you don't invest to much in it and can pay it off as quickly as possible. A friend of mine set up a separate savings account and has paid 5 extra chunks off his mortgage and is now in the happy situation of having built up a natural accumulation of about £50000 in his house. That isn't bad going no matter how you look at it and it is what I'd like to have at some stage.

Still sound like a robbery?

**The spartan** · July 13, 2010, 04:20 AM

You generally have three main motivators in an average person's life:
"Money" (any material gain)
"Morality" (anything instilled in you as a kid. Or, simply, what you think of yourself)
"Societal" (Simply, what others think of you)

Sometimes these motives mix and meld together when you make a decision, but you have rare cases of people (such as psychopaths) that have only a single motivator, in the case of a psychopath material gain of some kind.

**John Doe** · July 13, 2010, 05:35 AM

Originally Posted by The spartan

You generally have three main motivators in an average person's life:
"Money" (any material gain)
"Morality" (anything instilled in you as a kid. Or, simply, what you think of yourself)
"Societal" (Simply, what others think of you).

This.

Labour incentive is low wages so any extra money will have a positive and instant impact on the quality of life outside work, whereas for people with an higher earning job will not regard extra money worth diverting more time to obtain it, since their material needs are already answered. So if the money motivation is already fulfilled, then it's not a surprised people will look for the other 2 layers of motivation outside work. Also the fact that the huge majority of jobs are repetitive, even the one needing higher education, so no surprise that breaking the cycle of monotony will bear fruits of some kind: it's good to feel you are not just another brick in the wall.