Paul Graham, Alternatives to Traditional Employment Relationships, and Masters of the Universe

Some friends and I have been discussing an isolated comment from Paul Graham's recent column on "What Business Can Learn from Open Source". We are all Graham fans, which is what got the whole discussion started. I noted that I enjoyed and agreed with a lot of what Graham wrote, but occasionally he said something that I really didn't like. Not that there is anything wrong with that--that is why we read weblogs, to get away from the bland, homogeneous, safe, boring and non-controversial.

At the moment, that was a generic statement, and I would have been hard-pressed to cite an example off the top of my head. Coincidentally, a day later, I was reading Graham's latest (the above link), and came across something that really bugged me:

Because few of us know any alternative, we have no idea how much better we could do than the traditional employer-employee relationship. Such customs evolve with glacial slowness. Our employer-employee relationship still retains a big chunk of master-servant DNA....On top of its unpromising origins, employment has accumulated a lot of cruft over the years. [my italics]

Anyway, we batted this around, and went off on a few tangents, which I won't attempt to summarize. But the great thing about reading thought-provoking opinion pieces, and having smart friends with whom to discuss them, is that it helps you crystallize and articulate your own notions. That's what happened, and here is where I finallly ended up on Paul Graham:

One, the isolated comment in question seems to be offered in a broad, even sweeping, sociological context. That part about "origins". As I re-read it, I think it was either unfortunate phrasing, or just momentary and unplanned grandiosity. His scope is clearly modern software development. But, to me, the term "origins" makes me think of scope that encompasses the economic history of humanity. So that deprecatory statement, in regards to employment, would be comparable to something like "in addition to its unpromising premise, alchemy consumed the efforts of the few empirical scientists available in most medieval socities". In other words, that there was a good, historical alternative, and how much better if another path had been chosen.

The second point follows from the first. I think a lot of people who have been successful in software, and have been fortunate enough to do it in an independent way, generalize too much, and remember their good fortune too little. Good fortune being not just the relevant god-given talents, but also being born in just the right time (not to mention the right place) to enjoy them in the independent way they do. It reminds me, just a bit, of the "Masters of the Universe" in Tom Wolfe's novel Bonfire of the Vanities (see below).

They forget that their style of doing is only possible in a few fields, and has only become possible in a technical, quasi-engineering field very recently. It's a good and cool thing, but a little humility is occasionally in order, especially as pertains to making prescriptions for broader segments of society and the economy.

I see in retrospect that his wording, really by accident, touched a hot button for me personally. Not really very relevant to the point he was interested in making. But it has made for some good intellectual exercise.

(Quoting from the linked article: " 'Masters of the Universe' is a wonderful way of summarizing how terrific these guys thought they were. And Sherman, who coins the phrase, is a sympathetic character because he removes that little gnawing idea that some readers have about these young millionaire investment bankers and traders--the idea, buried inside too many of us, that their fabulous success actually proves that they are smarter than everyone else.")