Saints and Martyrs

A family member of mine recently had an honest conversation with his boss about what, and when, his boss wanted next. Because he wanted his boss’s seat. The reality is money is made in containers, and “meritocracy” depends on ambiguous selection criteria that have a lot to do with self-preservation. Capitalism replaced Mercantilism when Nation-shaped Containers started realising that win-win trade and wealth creation beats win-lose wealth extraction and war. Within nations, there are limited Corporate-shaped Containers and Role-shaped Containers with barriers to entry and exit. The trick is figuring out a system where we can be genuinely honest about skills and knowledge, problems and solutions, and paths for development. Politics comes in when power lies with keeping information hidden, and the ability to make significant decisions that affect other people. A boss who wants to keep the job for themselves, needs a reason to want to step aside. They are neither saints nor martyrs. They need a win-win alternative. We need sufficient barriers to incentivise effort to overcome those barriers. We also need incentives to not increase the size of those barriers once they have been (personally) overcome.