Game in the Brain

Listening to reengineering by Michael hammer and de agricultura of Cato and varro has interesting contrast. One talks about post cold war biz and more empowered workers, and the other is calling laborers “hands” and the roles strict method of management.
Its interesting when we consider some slaves have shares, and functions like serfs and some even like freemen in all but name. When considering the two philosophies I drawn to the set of incentives and punishments.
When Cato mentions selling old and sick slaves, and how hammer lays out what he thinks of the obsolete thinking of taking care of one’s workers, and how Cato talks about spending as little as possible, and hammer points out retraining and skill development (even in the form of documentation as a form of learning from past mistakes) clashes with Cato in a way that is quite interesting. You can’t apply hammers philosophy to a Roman lati funda effectively and you can’t apply cato in present day agribusiness. Where they fail to apply is an amazing study.
Especially when we think about lean management and process philosophy. Cato is surprisingly lean!
Along with De re militari, strategicon, and  xenophons works, analyzing these ancient works for operational research nuggets is kinda fun.