Paid incompetence and inefficiency

Those of us who work in the public sector often have it put to us that public sector staff are incompetent and the public sector is inefficient.

Never mind which sector - the current system requires people to work at a job to get money to access the necessities of life. It doesn't directly match people's skills to what needs doing and must be done by people - at least for the time being (really needs doing to sustain life on this planet)  and thus incompetent people (or more politely people with poorly matched skills) are in jobs working for organisations that are less efficient than they might be.

I'm not suggesting that the private sector is efficient and staffed entirely by competent people. The sector distinction is a false or irrelevant one in my view. It's just that I work in the public sector.

Efficiency and employment are diametrically opposed. Efficiency rises drastically where automation is introduced, but people are put out of work and this is seen as a bad thing. Similarly, if organisations use the best people for the task required, they will need fewer people to do it - more efficient, but less employment.


A Resource Based Economy aims to be sustainable and efficient  first and foremost. It does not aim to create work for the sake of it, but it "pulls in" what work it needs. Each person has access to the necessities of life as a birth right and not because they carry out a job that may be unnecessary (either because a machine an do it or because it doesn't need doing) or even counter productive (working to destroy rather than preserve and enhance life or the ecosystem).