Ministers arrange for
businesses to compete
Humans evolved to be
under competitive
pressure. We get the most enjoyment from
life, and do the best work, when we are competiting with one another,
even though we will frequently complain about the competition.
The ministers are required to
take advantage of our desire to
compete. When a minister
authorizes a new business, he must create at least two of them so that
they compete with each other, unless he believes that the business is
so simplistic, or so temporary, that competition is
unnecessary or wasteful. In those cases, he must post his reasons ( in
the Explanations
category) for not
arranging a competition so that we can pass judgment on whether he
is making wise decisions.
Ministers judge the businesses,
not them
A Minister must observe the
businesses and ensure that they compete in a fair and inspirational
manner, but he cannot micromanage a business. The reason the ministers
cannot tell the executives how to manage their
business is so that the executives can be put into competition with
each other. It would be pointless to put executives into competition if
they were
following orders from the ministers. In order to
determine which executive is more talented, they need to have the
freedom to make their own decisions.
A minister is permitted to provide advice
to the executives, and to any of the employees, but nobody is
obligated to follow his advice.
Ministers can fire employees of a business
Ministers cannot
micromanage any of the businesses that they create, since that would
defeat the purpose of putting the businesses into competition, but they
have the authority to fire an employee of a business. The ministers are
in a similar role as a referee of a football game. A referee
cannot tell any of the athletes or coaches what to do, but he has the
authority to expel a player.
Businesses can request ministers
to fire employees
By allowing the ministers
to fire employees within the businesses that they create, the managers
of a business can request the minister to analyze an employee and fire
him if he concludes that he should be fired. This would be useful when
the manager has an emotional attachment to the employee, and finds it
difficult to give an unbiased job performance review to him, and/or
finds it emotionally difficult to fire him.
Since the minister is not a member of the business, he will
be unlikely to have an emotional attachment to the employee, which
allows him to be less biased and more critical of the employee, which
in turn makes it easier for him to notice whether the employee is
inappropriate for the team. If the minister decides that the employee
should be fired, it will be
easier for him to fire the employee.
Nobody enjoys firing one of his team members, so when a ministers fires
an employee of a business, he spares the
manager from the emotional trauma of doing it. This concept is similar
to why
the License Ministry exists.
Although this constitution promotes the attitude that being fired
should be considered a normal part of discovering our talents, we
dislike being fired, and we dislike firing people that we have
developed an emotional attachment to. The ministers are not required to
obey the requests, however.
Competitions must be inspirational
Many sections of this
Constitution emphasize that our competitions must be beneficial.
For example, the Children's document points out here
that the competitions that schools are providing for the students are
worthless or detrimental.
The ministers must put businesses into a competition that inspires them
to be the most
beneficial to society, as opposed to the competition in a free
enterprise system in which they compete for profit.
The ministers have to judge the businesses according to the quality of
their products, their consumption of resources, and the attitudes and
behavior of the employees. As explained in the Jobs document, the executives
must create a work environment that is productive and efficient, but
which also allows employees to enjoy their job and develop beneficial
attitudes so that they are a good influence on other people.
A business in which the employees are angry, or frequently quitting
their job, or causing complaints of sexual harassment, must be
considered to be unacceptable, even if it is producing excellent
products in an efficient manner.
The ministers are required to take the role of a referee and observe
the competitions.
If a minister finds that an executive is cheating, or encouraging
fights or bad attitudes, he
must replace
the executive, even if that executive excels at managing the business.
One of the problems with the free enterprise system is that it favors
the people who cheat, fight, deceive, and manipulate. The ministers
must observe the competitions and prevent that from happening. The
executives who cannot compete in a beneficial manner must be regarded
as behaving like an animal. We must stop feeling sorry for people who
are destructive, and the
ministers cannot try to
improve
the behavior of the executives through punishments, rehabilitation
programs, or other techniques.
Since the ministers do not have any secrecy, when they replace an
executive, they must post their reason in the Explanations
category so that we can pass judgment on whether the ministers are
making wise decisions.
An executive who is replaced will have an unfavorable job review in his
entry of the People
database,
which will make it more difficult for him to get another executive
position.
The Efficiency Ministry
also
judges the executives
It is difficult to design a
competition that inspires productive
behavior, and it is difficult to determine whether an
executive is competing in a beneficial manner, so it is useful to get a
lot of people involved with observing the competitions and passing
judgment on everybody's behavior. Therefore, the
Efficiency Ministry of the Quality division is also responsible for
ensuring the executives are behaving properly by passing judgment on
them, and notifying the ministers if they suspect any type of
incompetence, cheating, or other problems.
The efficiency ministry is also expected to complain to the minister if
they believe he has replaced an executive who was doing an excellent
job.
The efficiency ministry sends notifications and complaints to
the ministers by posting a document in the Requests
category so that everybody can see what they are doing, and pass
judgment on their decisions.
If the Efficiency Minister concludes that a minister is
creating useless competitions, or allowing executives to
cheat or fight, he can post a request to the president to
investigate. If he is certain that a minister is inappropriate, he can
request an intellectual trial of that minister.
Employees are encouraged to
criticize their boss
In a free enterprise
system, the employees are essentially animals
that the business owns,
and as a result, the employees risk being fired if they criticize their
boss or their business.
This constitution changes the situation dramatically by regarding
everybody in the city as a "city employee". The businesses do not own
their employees, and the employees do not have any
loyalty to their
boss or their business.
Every employee is working for the benefit of the city, not for their
boss or their business. Their boss is simply a city employee in a
management position, and every business is a group of city employees.
The employees are encouraged to identify problems with their business
or the products that they produce, and to identify incompetent or
dishonest people in management
positions. The employees
post
their documents in the Suggestions
category. An employee gets credit for finding improvements, which will
help him if he wants to get into a management or government position.
An employee who posts evidence that his management is incompetent, or
who identifies problems with their products, is
regarded as a more valuable
employee than those who are oblivious to incompetence and
corruption, or who are too apathetic or introverted to do anything to
expose or stop
it.
One of the lessons to learn from such crimes as the Holocaust, the 9/11
attack, and the Apollo moon landing is that employees and citizens who ignore or are oblivious to incompetence
and corruption, are dangerous to
society because they allow crime networks to grow.
If a manager tries to get revenge on an employee who has criticized
him, that executive must be regarded as behaving like a violent dog that is attacking a
person who has not done him any harm. Everybody must be able to calmly
accept and acknowledge their failures. This Constitution set higher
standards for people, and those who behave in violent and crude manners
must be put on restrictions or evicted.
Some problems must be tolerated
To complicate the issue of
exposing problems with the business or its products, the people in
leadership positions must understand that products can never be
perfect, and neither can people. Therefore, some of the complaints that
employees will have about imperfections with a product or management
will be valid, but they will not get credit for the complaint if the
problem is considered acceptable.
For example, a few Boeing employees have complained about imperfections
with Boeing airplanes, and a couple died afterwards. It is possible
that the Boeing management panicked and arranged for them to be
murdered. If so, that is an destructive
reaction.
All of the existing cultures have the problem that they do not
acknowledge the concept that perfection is impossible. They refuse to
believe that humans are apes, and that we must expect everybody to
regularly make mistakes and stupid decisions. Every culture also
refuses to acknowledge that we cannot expect products, software,
medical drugs, or medical procedures to be perfect.
This problem is especially serious in the USA. For example, people are
constantly filing lawsuits against doctors for making mistakes, and
filing lawsuits against businesses for having products that are
imperfect.
Although some lawyers and citizens profit from the lawsuits, the nation
suffers because it results in a lot of people and businesses wasting
labor and resources on insurance and lawsuits.
In order to improve this situation, the ministers are restricted to
people who understand that when engineers create a new product, the
ministers must make a decision about when it is "good enough" for
production.
When an employee makes a complaint about a product, there should be no
attempt to silence him. Instead, the ministers must make a decision
about whether the problem is serious enough to fix, or whether it needs
to be tolerated. We should look for a way to work around those minor
problems rather than demand perfection.
The design of a competition
is critical
A competition
is analogous to a sieve,
such as the one in the photo to
the right.
A competition sifts the people into categories, such as winner or
loser, or first-place, second-place, and third-place.
The rules of the competition
are analogous to the metal grid
in the photo to the right. The rules determine who remains after the
competition is over.
The people who supervise the competition are analogous to the person
who is using the sieve.
Businesses and citizens arrange for thousands of competitions every
year, but they are designed to satisfy to our emotional
cravings, rather than to serve a useful purpose. For example,
businesses design competitions to advertise their products and sell
items.
Furthermore,
the people supervising the
competitions are often cheating,
or trying to prevent
certain people from entering the competition, thereby defeating the
purpose of having the competition.
Some examples of the competitions that are worthless or dishonest are:
a) |
The elections of government officials.
The elections
are
a competition. The candidates are the competitors, and the voters
are the judges of the competition. However, the current election
systems have three serious problems:
|
1) |
Contestants can join organizations.
All election system allow the candidates to join
political parties. Organizations have an advantage over
individuals in a competition, so this favors the candidates who
are
willing to become a member of an organization. The elections become a
battle between the
organizations, rather than a competition between the candidates. This
results in candidates who are more interested in their
organization than the nation.
|
|
2)
|
There are no standards for the judges.
Almost every competition sets high standards for the judges and
referees. The exception is our election systems. Almost every adult is
allowed to vote. Voters don't have to meet any standards for
intelligence, education, or mental health. This allows elderly people
with senility and Alzheimer's to vote, and ignorant teenagers.
|
|
3)
|
There is no quality control.
There is no organization to ensure that the elections are honest, and
most voters are so apathetic, stupid, or easily deceived that they
don't investigate accusations of cheating in the elections.
|
|
b)
|
The competitions for profit.
A free enterprise system puts businesses into competition for profit,
but there is no concern for how
the businesses make profit, and there is no supervision of the
competition.
Although this type of competition works very well for the primitive
societies of the Middle Ages, it has allowed cheating and abuse to
become so extreme
during the past few centuries that some people reacted by creating
unions, and other people reacted by demanding that the government
create laws and agencies to reduce the abuse.
The
unions and laws have reduced some of the abuse, but they cannot improve
human minds, so the competition for profit is
continuing to favor the people who have more of an interest in money,
status, and material wealth than the quality of our lives.
The free enterprise system has become dominated by people who fight and
cheat for money. Their behavior is not much better than the apes that
are fighting over a tomato in the photo
to the right.
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c)
|
The competitions to memorize information and do math
The schools put students into a competition to
get the best
grades, but students get good grades by doing good on school tests,
most of
which are a test of their memory
or math abilities.
Therefore, the students who win those competitions have
excellent memories or math abilities, but they are not necessarily the
most "intelligent".
Furthermore, they are not necessarily the
students who have the most useful skills, the best leadership
abilities, the best mental health, the
most honesty, the best self-control, the best ability to deal with
constructive criticism, or the most dependable.
To make the situation even worse, the existing schools allow
students to get good grades and diplomas in
subjects that have no value, or which are nonsensical. For example,
there are students getting excellent grades in religion and Freudian
psychology.
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d)
|
The competitions to win a recreational event.
Many people are involved with recreational events, such as tennis,
golf, soccer, bingo, or chess, but not to enjoy the game or the people,
or to get exercise, or to learn something of value. Rather, they are
involved with the event in order to win the game.
There is so much emphasis on winning recreational events that millions
of children and adults are wasting a significant
portion of their life practicing the events in order to increase their
chances of winning. They develop a skill that has no value to them or society. They
gain nothing by winning the events, other than some momentary
titillation.
Many events provide the winners with trophies, but the trophies don't
improve their life, and they are a burden on society to manufacture.
Some people have collected so many trophies that they put them into
boxes, and they put the boxes into storage.
There are also millions of people wasting a portion of their time and
money searching for and purchasing "better" equipment, such as
better cleats or better golf clubs, to increase their chance of winning.
Furthermore, the emphasis on winning is so extreme that many athletes
have pushed themselves to such extremes that they suffered permanent
physical injuries or brain damage.
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e)
|
The competition for material wealth.
Our craving for status and material wealth has caused a
lot of people to compare their
wealth to that of other people, and to waste some of their liesure time
flaunting their expensive automobile, jewelry, clothing, or infinity
swimming pool.
It also results in people boasting about
traveling to an exotic location, or watching a sports game from the VIP
areas.
It was beneficial for prehistoric people to compete for material wealth
and to flaunt their wealth because
that inspired
one another to improve their living
conditions. Today the competition for material wealth is detrimental because the people in
the advanced nations, including the "poor" people, have such excessive amounts of wealth that
their homes are cluttered with it.
The boasting by wealthy people is no longer beneficial. Instead, it is
encouraging idiotic behavior from the wealthy people, and causing the
poor people to believe that they are suffering. It is also encouraging
crime, and encouraging both men and women to form friendships and
marriages according to the financial benefit.
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Competing to improve society gives us better
leaders
Every competition that has
been created so far is detrimental because they were created to appease
our emotional cravings. These competitions are giving us government
officials, business executives and school officials who are dishonest,
aggressive, selfish, neurotic, and incompetent. Likewise, the
recreational competitions are encouraging people to waste their life on
the development of a worthless skill, and to clutter their home with
trophies.
In order to improve this situation, the government has total control of
all culture, and they are required to justify all of their policies.
This will allow them to design competitions that have a benefit to
society.
For example:
•
|
In order to provide
ourselves with better government
officials, the candidates must compete as
individuals, not as members of an organization, and they must be judged
according to their previous achievements in improving society, rather than their
ability to appease voters. The Elections
section has more details.
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•
|
In order to provide
ourselves with better business
executives, they must be put into a competition to improve society. Although they must
operate efficiently, they must be judged according to the effect that their business is having
on society and their employees. They must be judged according to how beneficial they are to the city.
With that type of competition, we will get business executives who
excel at finding improvements to our work environment, transportation
systems, elevators, computers, cell phones, and medical drugs.
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•
|
In order to provide
ourselves with better school officials,
they must be in competition to create
graduates who become the best members
of society. This requires comparing the graduates of different schools
to determine which of them are forming
the best friendships and marriages, which of them are the most
productive at their jobs, and which of them become the most honest,
reliable, and desirable.
The students should also be in a competition to become the most
desirable adult, rather than to merely have good grades or diplomas.
|
•
|
In order to provide
ourselves with better recreational activities,
the activities must be judged according to the effect the activity has
on the attitudes and behavior of the people, and the effect it has on
society.
An example that was mentioned in a previous document is that people
could compete in public hobbies.
That type of activity encourages people to develop useful skills, and they make the
city more desirable in the process by creating art, footbridges,
gardens, furniture, and other useful things.
Another example that was mentioned in previous documents is that a
recreational activity should encourage participation
so that people get exercise, enjoy nature, and socialize, rather than
passively watch other people compete to win an event.
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Executives must appease the
ministers
This Constitution puts the
executives under the supervision of the ministers, so the executives must
appease the ministers rather than customers. However, unlike customers,
who make decisions according to what is best for
themselves and their family, the ministers are required to make
decisions according to what is best for society.
Furthermore, in a free enterprise system, customers do not have to
explain any of their decisions, but the ministers must post a
document in the Explanations
category to explain all of their decisions so that we can pass judgment
on whether they are making intelligent decisions.
The executives are judged by their
value to society
Determining which business
is more valuable to society requires comparing their efficiency at
producing products; comparing the social environment that they have
created for their employees; and trying to determine what effect they
are having on the city and its future. It's a difficult decision, but
it is better for the ministers to make those judgments than to ignore
the effect that businesses have on society, or to judge them by their
ability to make profit.
The ministers are also required to routinely replace the worst
performing executive so that other people have a chance, and the
president is required to replace the worst performing ministers.
Eventually this will give us ministers who excel at judging the
executives, and executives who excel at finding improvements to the
city and our lives.
Some examples of
competition
Here are some examples of
how and why the ministers can put businesses
into competition.
Example of competition: Maintenance businesses
In a free enterprise
system, the businesses that maintain products, including the
maintenance of human bodies (such as doctors and dentists), are in
competition for profit, and
this
has resulted in a lot of abuse, such as automobile
mechanics and dentists
who deliberately deceive customers into paying for unnecessary work.
The ministers must arrange competitions that
put the businesses under pressure to be the most useful to
society. This puts businesses under the opposite
pressure of a free enterprise system. For example, a mechanic will be
under pressure to maintain products with the least amount
of labor and resources, and a dentist will be under pressure to
maintain
people's teeth with the least amount
of dental work.
There is no right or wrong way of designing a competition for a
maintenance business. One possibility for bicycle repair shops is for
the Maintenance Minister to provide the city with two bicycle repair
shops. He could request that the bicycles be
manufactured with a unique ID number so that their maintenance history
can be monitored. He would then assign half of the bicycles to each of
the two shops.
When a citizen notices that a bicycle
needs repair, he would either notify the city that it needs
repair by sending a text message with the item's ID number and its
problem,
or by dropping it off at one of the facilities that the city provides
for broken items. The employee (or robot) at the Broken Items facility
would look
at the ID number of the bicycle and send it to the business that is
responsible for it.
Each of the bicycle repair shops would be in competition to maintain
their
bicycles with the least amount of labor and resources. They will not
have any desire to do unnecessary repairs because that will make them
look inefficient. They will instead want to do the best repairs
possible so that their bicycles need the least amount
of repair work. The repair shop that has the least amount
of work would be considered the most beneficial.
Furthermore, since the businesses are not permitted to keep secrets,
the minister would analyze the shop to determine why it is
doing a better work, and if he can figure it out, the information will
be provided to the other shop, and to the future shops, so that
everybody can benefit from it.
A similar competition could be set up for dentists. The minister could
assign every citizen to a particular dentist. The minister would then
observe the people to determine which group has the least amount of
dental problems, dental work, toothaches, and related problems. The
dentist with the least amount of work would be considered the best
dentist.
The minister must also try to determine why that
dentist was better, and if he could figure it out, he would be able to
provide all
of the other dentists and dental schools with the information so that
all of the other dentists could improve their techniques.
Allowing the government to assign us to certain dentists or doctors
would reduce our freedom, but we would benefit tremendously because it
would make it easier for us to determine which doctors and dentists
were doing the best job. That would allow us to help all of the other
doctors and dentists improve their work.
By putting the maintenance businesses into a competition to reduce the
amount of work they do, the resources they use, and the number of
employees they need, they will become increasingly efficient and
beneficial, which is the opposite of a free enterprise system.
Furthermore, since none of the businesses can keep secrets from one
another, and there are no patents or copyrights, when a business
discovers a way of improving their operation, that knowledge becomes
available to all of the other businesses.
Another example is the maintenance of apartment buildings. In a free
enterprise system, everybody who owns a house or apartment building has
to waste a lot of their time trying to figure out which
businesses to hire to maintain their plumbing, electrical lines, roof,
refrigerator, and other items, but with this economic system, nobody
owns anything except for some personal items, such as shoes, underwear,
and toothbrushes. The city owns all of the buildings, and all of the
equipment. Therefore, the city is responsible for maintaining
everything.
The businesses that maintain apartment buildings are in competition
with each other, but not for profit. Instead, they compete to maintain
their buildings with the least amount of labor and resources.
Each of the maintenance businesses will be assigned certain buildings
to take care of, and the businesses that reduce the hours that their
employees work, the number of employees they need, and the resources
that they use, will be considered the best, and the executive of the
worst performing business is the first to be replaced.
Nobody in the city has to waste any of his time trying to figure out
which business to use to fix a problem with the apartment building, and
none of the executives of the restaurants, social clubs, factories, or
other facilities have to waste their time getting bids on maintenance
chores. When somebody notices a problem with his equipment or facility,
he notifies the city, and the maintenance business that has been
assigned to that particular facility or equipment will deal with it.
Example of why competition is necessary: Twitter
An example of why
competition is necessary can be seen when Elon Musk
purchased Twitter. A large number of the employees of Twitter loved
their job, and some of them had posted videos on the Internet to show
how wonderful it was to work at Twitter. Those videos showed
them casually arriving at work whenever they pleased, having free food
and wine throughout the day, and having lots of time to socialize, play
games, and relax. They rarely did any useful work.
The reason Twitter had so many employees doing virtually nothing is
because they didn't have any competition. Free enterprise does not work
properly in our modern era, and the result is that a lot of large
businesses are essentially monopolies for their particular product.
To
add to the problem, all of the legal systems in the world are
ineffective, resulting in many business executives getting into their
positions, and holding onto them, through blackmail, crime networks,
murder, and other forms of cheating.
In order to prevent businesses from becoming like Twitter, the
ministers are required to put businesses into competition, and the
Quality division is required to experiment with methods of reducing
crime and corruption.
Example of competition: Software for robots
Robots need a lot of
software, but instead of having several
gigantic companies competing to produce all of the software, the
Economic Division will arrange for lots of small businesses that
compete for particular functions.
For example, the Economic ministers might arrange for two small
software businesses to compete to improve the function that
a robot uses to
track a moving object. The businesses might be as small as one computer
programmer, or they might have 20 programmers. The minister decides how
large the businesses will be, and he can base his decision on
discussions with computer programmers and whoever else he wants to get
advice from.
Since all technology belongs to the human race, the businesses can use
and modify any portions of the existing software without any concern
for
copyrights, plagiarism, or patents.
During the competition, the businesses will keep their software a
secret, but they
will release their source code to the public at the end of the
competition.
The Economic ministers will then pass judgment on whether the
businesses have
improved the tracking function. It is possible that both businesses
have found some improvements, in which case both will get credit for
their improvements. However, if a business fails to find any
improvements, the programmers in that business will have a failure
listed in their job performance review.
The programmers who repeatedly fail in their competitions to improve
software are given software projects that are less demanding, and if
they fail at those simpler projects, they will be required to try some
other job.
This type of competition will allow more rapid development of
products and software. For example, in a free enterprise system, if a
person wanted to develop a robot to eliminate mice and rats, he would
have a very difficult time because he would need a lot of money to get
the business established and hire employees, and it would be very
difficult and expensive for him to find businesses willing to provide
him with the technology and software that he needed.
With this constitution, however, a person would be able to propose the
development of a robot to eliminate mice and rats, even if he does not
know how to develop such a robot. If an official in the Economic
Ministry considers his idea worth pursuing, he will arrange for two
or more businesses to compete to develop such a robot.
The businesses that the minister sets up will have access to all of the
existing robotic software
and hardware. That allows them to modify an existing robot, rather than
be forced to develop their own robot
For example, they could take a Spot robot, a video camera, a lidar unit, a software
function that can track a moving object, a software function that can
identify objects within video images, and a software function that can
control a robotic arm, gun, laser, Taser, or other device.
They would then combine that hardware and software, and possibly modify
some of it,
and create a robot that identifies mice and rats by analyzing the video
from its camera; uses the lidar unit to track their movement and
determine their location; use a laser or other device to kill the
animal; and then use its robotic arm to pick up and dispose of its dead
body.
By having access to all of the existing hardware and software, they
would be able to create such a robot without
developing much software or hardware. It would be similar to
a child putting pieces of Lego together to create something.
Furthermore, after they finish creating the robot, its design would be
put in the public domain, thereby allowing other engineers to modify it
for other tasks, such as creating a robot that travels along foot
paths, plazas, and bicycle paths and uses a camera to find plants
growing within the cracks between cobblestones, tiles, and rocks, and
using a tool to remove or kill them.
Small groups of
engineers and programmers can create robots for new tasks,
such as resetting cobblestones,
by modifying
an existing robot.
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Someone else might then modify that weed removal robot so that the
robot can remove unwanted plants in city park. He would
provide the robot with a map of the area, and identify all of the trees
and plants that the robot is to protect, and the robot would remove
all other plants.
By creating software libraries for voice recognition, artificial
speech, and artificial intelligence, and putting them in the public
domain, the computer programmers
could easily add voice
capabilities and intelligence to their software. That will be very
beneficial because it
will allow us to give verbal commands, and ask questions, to robots,
computers, bulldozers, farm tractors, CNC machines, and other devices,
rather than use multilevel
menus.
Furthermore, if software is developed to understand whispers,
then we could whisper
to computers, phones, and other devices, to make us less annoying and
distracting to other people.
In order to make it easy for computer programmers
to use existing software, the economic division is required to put
pressure on everybody to make their software as modular and
understandable as possible. Computer programmers are considered incompetent
if they make software that is so
confusing that other programmers have a difficult time fixing or
modifying it.
This is the opposite
attitude of a free enterprise system, in which businesses are sometimes
deliberately
making their software confusing in order to prevent other businesses
from understanding it and copying it. There is even a competition to create the
most confusing C program.
It would be much more beneficial to have contests, especially for
computer science students, to make some function easier to understand
and incorporate into another program. In addition to getting
practice with improving existing
software, the students who excel in those type of contests would be
useful in the management jobs in which they supervise the development
of software and pass judgment on the talents of other computer
programmers.
By comparison, having a competition to create confusing software does nothing of
value. That type of contest is just another example of how men enjoy
competitions so much, and we have such a resistance to thinking about
what we are doing, that we
often
get involved with competitions that are worthless, destructive,
obnoxious, dangerous, or wasteful.
I mentioned here
that Google provided the world with a
software library for webp images, and we should have libraries and DLLs
for a lot of other complex software. That will make
the development of new products and software much more rapid and simple.
That will also allow people to have jobs that don't exist in a free
enterprise system. Specifically, the job of taking some existing
software and putting some of its functions into libraries and DLLs.
We could also design software so that a user can
switch DLLs whenever he pleases in order to allow him to determine
which one works best for his particular application. He would not need
to know what a DLL was. Rather, he would just choose from a menu of
which variation he wants to try.
For example, computer programmers around the world might have already
created a dozen different functions for tracking moving objects, each
of which has particular advantages
and disadvantages, making it impossible to claim that
one of them is "best".
By providing the tracking software functions as DLLs, and letting users
choose between them, a
farmer might find that a particular DLL is best at observing, tracking,
and killing rats and mice during the night, and an employee at an
airport might find that a different DLL is better at tracking birds
during the daytime.
Robots are becoming increasingly important to us, but creating software
for robots is extremely
difficult. Therefore, we should make it as
easy as possible for computer programmers to make
variations of the existing robot software so that we can speed up the
process of making robots do more tasks.
Some robots can move boxes around a warehouse, and we should make it
easy for a group of computer programmers and engineers to modify those
existing robots to do other tasks, such as removing weeds,
harvesting fruit and vegetables, mowing lawns, and cleaning city plazas.
We will improve our lives significantly by making robot hardware and
software more modular and easier to modify into new robots. By
comparison, we won't improve anything with our lives by putting labor
and resources into the development of new and improved lipsticks, pet
products, gambling machines, Hollywood movies, or video games.
The worst executives must be routinely replaced
In a free enterprise
system, everybody is free to start a business, but with this
Constitution, the Economic Ministers are the only people who can create
businesses, and they are the only people who can hire the executives.
Therefore, in order to allow other people to have the opportunity to
become a business executives, the ministers are required to routinely
fire the worst performing executive so that somebody else can try the
job.
This requirement creates the dilemma of determining how often an
executive should be replaced. The Economic President is responsible for
passing judgment on whether each of his ministers is replacing
executives often enough. This determination will be based on how many
people are asking to become an executive, and whether any of the
executives are doing an obviously inferior job.
The voters are required to pass judgment on whether the economic
president and his ministers are replacing executives often enough, or
too often. The Efficiency Ministry of the Quality Division is also
authorized to pass judgment on the performance of the ministers and
president, and if they don't believe the voters are doing a proper job,
they can fire the president.
Executives are judged on
their effect on their employees
The executives are not to be
judged
according to whether the employees like
them or their work environment. Rather, they are
judged according to their effect
on society. Some examples:
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If the employees of
a business are spending a lot of time going to
doctors to deal with carpal tunnel syndrome or joint pain, the
executive would be considered incompetent
if his competitors did not
have such problems.
However, if his competitors had the same problem, then the ministers
must investigate to determine if the jobs are expecting people
to do something that is inappropriate for the human body.
If the ministers conclude that the job is inappropriate, then they will
work with the executives to find a way to reduce the problem, such as
altering the
job; authorizing a business to develop a machine to do the work; or
discontinuing the product and finding different jobs for the employees.
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If an
executive is ignoring or tolerating male employees who annoy the female
employees
with lewd remarks, or by bumping into them as they walk past them, he
will be considered incompetent,
even if he is doing an excellent job of
managing the business.
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If employees are
frequently quitting a business,
the minister is expected to
investigate to determine whether
the executive has created an unpleasant work environment, in which
case he will be considered incompetent.
If the employees of his competitors are also quitting frequently, then
the minister must consider whether the jobs are inappropriate
to the human mind and/or body, in
which case the jobs need to be altered.
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A free enterprise system doesn't care what effect business executives
have on their employees, customers, or society , but the goal of the
Economic Division is to
find executives who create such a pleasant and safe work environment
that his employees enjoy
going to work. The executives must also ensure that the employees are
doing work that is beneficial to society rather than wasting their time
on worthless tasks.
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