barriomulas.com - No Option but the Pyramid

John B. Egger in "The Free Market" stated the following in a critique of trade unions: "It is tautology that when the worker punches in he proves that he considers work his best alternative; it doesn't follow that he likes it... Why does he do what he doesn't like? He is free to go elsewhere; the market allows him to seek other work or to snooze in a hammock if he wishes."

Daniel Quinn in "Beyond Civilization" in reference to civilization states that "when it comes to the most fundamental thing of all [cultures], getting the food they need to stay alive, they're all alive."

Hunter-gatherism, on the other hand, was a system where food was public and free for the taking. "No other culture in history has ever put food under lock and key - and putting it there is the corner stone of our economy, for if the food wasn't under lock and key, who would work?"

Quinn in "Beyond Civilization" notes that "It took Khufu twenty-three years to build his Great Pyramid at Giza, where some eleven hundred stone blocks, each weighing about two and a half tons, had to be quarried, moved, and set in place every day during the annual building season, roughly four months long." These workers did so not because they wanted to, but because they had no other choice.

The worker works because he has no other choice to. It's either that or starvation. "Every morning," notes Quinn, "we must shake off the hangover and forget about fun for eight or ten hours while we drag our quota of stones up the side of the pyramid."

"Pharoah Khufu needed to exercise no more control over his workers at Giza than pharaoh Bill Gates exercises over his workers at Microsoft. I submit that Egyptian workers, relatively speaking, got as much out of building Khufu's pyramid as Microsoft workers will get out of building Bill Gates's pyramid... If they see themselves as having no choice but to build pyramids. They'll build whatever they're told to build, whether it's pyramids, parking garages, or computer programs."