Originally Posted by smooth

I was giving you a glib example of the argument in Rifkin's book of how it does work in the European model.

I should point out, however, that even in your example it doesn't "pay to be average." In your second example, worker B works almost two-thirds less time than worker A and makes only half as much. If you increased his hours to 6 (still less than 8, which worker A does), he makes as much as worker A. But the Eurpean model is that worker B prefers to take a pay cut and only work a fraction of the time.

That was the premise of me and Rifkin's argument: that people would prefer to make a wage that allows them to have more time out of the factory, rather than the goal itself being making more money.