Comment by emsy | Hacker News Reader

Comment by emsy | Hacker News Reader

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I recently watched an interesting video of an austrian economy professor, who came to the conclusion that our current competition based society is in effect because in the past competition was crucial to survive, and thus people competed. Our current generation competes because we grew up in a competitive society and in order to be truly cooperative, cooperation needs to become a part of our "memes". Here's the video, unfortunately in German and no subtitles are available yet: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oouoee9UvEc.

I think the main problem with group bonuses is that those who know/think they worked harder will feel treated unfairly. I have no information on how group bonuses are perceived or what their effects are. However, I personally think that the main problems come from teams who don't share the same spirit/culture and thus, those problems also exist in individually rewarded teams.

"I think the main problem with group bonuses is that those who know/think they worked harder will feel treated unfairly."

Individual bonuses, if they befall the wrong individuals or are percieved to be unjust can destroy the will of the entire group or organization. I would claim that for expert organizations the risks of individual rewards outweight any benefits they may have. Group bonuses or company wide profit sharing spread general goodwill. Continuous performance is what counts in the long run. Continuous performers will get their reward in the form of raises or promotion. In theory, at least. Note: I'm from an egalitarian nordic country, culture probably affects my perception.

I'm from Germany and bonuses and wages are something we don't talk about with many people, let alone colleagues. I even had a paragraph in my last working contracts that forbade me to do so.

I've been thinking about the same thing! It's a pity the video is in German.

I came to the conclusion that at a societal level, competition is almost always harmful as soon as it's outside the confines of a game (i.e. when people stand to win or lose something tangible from it).

I believe it makes all large organisations extremely inefficient and dysfunctional. As another example, it results in a lot of redundancy in the context of R&D.

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