by
Alec Soth,
Andrew Martin,
Des Barry,
Ian Jack,
Isabel Hilton,
James Lasdun,
Joe Sacco,
Liz Jobey,
Luc Sante,
Neil Steinberg,
Tessa Hadley
(editors)
And yet someone had to make toy sand-shovels for the world. What, in a just society, could ever induce someone to do that sort of work? Should all youths be conscripted to work in factories for a year? Should plastics-factory labour be reserved for the punishment of white-collar criminals? Finally I decided that salaries should be determined by a factor that averaged the arduousness, tediousness, futility and imbecility of a job. The richest people in the world then would be coal miners. Injection-moulding machine operators or tenders would fly to work in their own planes, and competition for such work would be stiff. Having had the experience, I would be quite content to be poor.