> Couldn't there be competition but not
> motivated by getting money ? Amateur
> sports have competition
> without money rewards to the winner.
> It is conceivable that a whole
> new system of motivation for
> innovation could be developed.
>
Well, you can always stop rewarding people for various deeds. But how exactly does that change people's motivations? I suppose you might say that it must have that effect - that people would stop seeking personal gain if commodity exchange were abolished. We can test that assumption, though. Commodity exchange was abolished (at least as the dominant form of economic activity) in the Soviet Union. Here's a description of aspects of economic life in the Soviet Union, from a history of Soviet economic planning. So my question is: Why did such forms of motivation persist in the absence of commodity exchange?
[The Life and Times of Soviet Socialism, Alex F. Dowlah & John E. Elliott, pp.163-64)]:
> [In the Brezhnev era,] [s]ome of the most common forms of illicit
> activities were theft of socialist property, using company time for
> gainful private activity, cheating of customers (for example, by
> giving short measure or adulteration of goods), "speculation" (that
> is, purchase and resale of goods for private gain), illegal
> production, and corruption.
>
> Illicit production took many forms, for example, engaging in
> prohibited trades (making or repairing weapons, operating gambling
> houses or bathhouses, making candles or other religious articles),
> using government tools and materials in moonlighting activities,
> underground production of blue jeans and other products associated
> with Western youth culture, engaging in private production on the job
> or under the cover of a state enterprise or collective farm, or
> employing others in underground manufacturing. Theft, cheating, and
> corruption are hardly unique to a centrally directed economy. However,
> several institutional and policy aspects of the Soviet system appear
> to have given the underground economy special stimulus. Price
> controls, combined with repressed inflation, made shortages of
> consumer goods and hence black markets likely. Much private activity
> was prohibited. Much that was permitted required a license and payment
> of a high fee. Certain kinds of products, such as blue jeans or rock
> and roll music, were underproduced relative to market demand. These
> and other factors encouraged underground economic activity and
> informal market exchanges.
>
SA