80/20 principle.

From Tom DeMarco's book "Peopleware",

A Person with a work life of, say, forty years will spend five years working and thirty-five managing. That implies an exceedingly tall, narrow hierarchy. Fifteen percent of the staff is doing work, with 85% managing. As little as ten percent of the cost could be spent on workers, with ninety percent going to reward the managers. Even Marx didn't foresee such top-heaviness of capitalistic structures.

Some time ago, I was in a discussion on 80/20 principle. I was told that the 80/20 principle was assumed to be universal truth, like the "Sun rises in the east." And so, I was told that the things happening around me are to be interpreted under this "rule".

I think, the 80/20 principle is an offshoot of the capitalistic structures. Or for that matter, any other structure devised by the human thought - schools, libraries, infrastructure systems, military, literature. After all, Capitalism is Communism of the rich. Human beings are so limited in their capacity of thinking that, they can not devise a system, in which every one can participate and contribute effectively.

Whoever chooses to participate in a system, there is always some focus - the same focus, that every one should aim for and achieve. Also, if you don't fit into any of these systems, you just don't exist. And hence you are either the 80% percent, or the 20% - nothing else.

In a way, its what comedian George Carlin says

There are always some winners, and a whole bunch of losers.

After thousands of years of evolution, and more than two thousand years of thinking, if this is what we, human beings can accomplish, it sure makes sense to say - "We are not Gods!!!"