Thanks. I dropped out of my CS degree at university and did economics instead, and now i straddle both worlds :P
I say with no ego or pride that I've heard just about every economic theory/justification there is from discussions with the rich and the poor. On the one hand its fascinating how most of the world is driven by relatively folksy beliefs. Its also fascinating to me how relatively devoid of economic knowledge most programmers, and indeed people, are.
The "I work really hard" is a standard refrain in discussions with relatively wealthy individuals in justifying their wealth. I would place it almost at the level of a basic emotive response. Perhaps its trying to respond to an innate notion of fairness in the human psyche that needs addressing to explain obvious inequality. Either way, it keeps getting trotted out despite being obviously disprovable and also being not the way that entrepreneurs or businessmen pay their own staff, so it was a good bet from you were talking to someone in just such a scenario :P
I say with no ego or pride that I've heard just about every economic theory/justification there is from discussions with the rich and the poor. On the one hand its fascinating how most of the world is driven by relatively folksy beliefs. Its also fascinating to me how relatively devoid of economic knowledge most programmers, and indeed people, are.
The "I work really hard" is a standard refrain in discussions with relatively wealthy individuals in justifying their wealth. I would place it almost at the level of a basic emotive response. Perhaps its trying to respond to an innate notion of fairness in the human psyche that needs addressing to explain obvious inequality. Either way, it keeps getting trotted out despite being obviously disprovable and also being not the way that entrepreneurs or businessmen pay their own staff, so it was a good bet from you were talking to someone in just such a scenario :P