[WalterBright]

The thing to remember is people are nearly always motivated by selfish impulses, not altruism. (Even the most dedicated communists in the USSR still participated in the black market.)

Any system that relies on people being selfless is doomed to failure.

(Even charity work is selfishly motivated - people like the status they get from donating to charity, praise from their social circle, and feeling good from doing it.)

[neolog]

So a system that relies on people being altruistic can work fine as long as people feel good about being altruistic?

[WalterBright]

It can work fine if they can find enough people who feel good about being altruistic and don't want more. There are certainly people like that. Are there enough to run an economy? Not remotely. Are there enough to run a largish organization? Nope.

[neolog]

> Are there enough to run a largish organization? Nope.

I'm not convinced this is true. I can think of some small organizations full of employees who could make more money elsewhere but who are dedicated to an altruistic cause.

[WalterBright]

> small

Sounds like you agree with me.

BTW, the D Language Foundation is an example :-)

[neolog]

I can think of a bunch of small organizations. Together that's enough people to fill a large organization. Maybe there are some other properties of large organizations that make it impossible to compose them out of altruistic people.

[WalterBright]

I can't think of any large organization that operates without people motivated by their self interest. Can you?