These others had been paid the same amount, they complained, but they had worked fewer hours. Those who were hired earliest complained. Those who were hired later had no complaints, because they were getting paid as much for a partial day's labor as the first men who were hired received for a whole day's labor. That was what he had offered the men who had been hired early in the morning. In each case, he promised to pay them fairly.Īt the end of the workday, he paid each man a penny. He did this in the sixth hour, the ninth hour, and the 11th hour. They trusted him, so they went into the vineyard to work. He hired them, and he promised to give them an honest day's wages. He found some of them who were idle, waiting for work. (This was before central banking the offer seemed plausible to Jesus' listeners.) In the third hour, which meant 9 AM, he again went out in search of other workers. He would hire them for a day for the payment of a penny. So, one fine morning, he came to a group of unemployed laborers and made an offer.
But his initial motivation was to help others gain employment. He wanted to make certain that the vineyard would be cared for and made more productive. He wanted to bring as many workers as he could into the vineyard, so that they would have employment. Jesus described a man who owned a vineyard. The context of this affirmation of ownership rights was a parable. In this pair of rhetorical questions, Jesus challenged the idea that an aggrieved participant in the transaction - an early morning worker - has a moral claim retroactively against the employer, who came to an agreement with the worker, and who then fulfilled the terms of the original agreement. The only affirmation more authoritative was God's announcement of an ownership boundary around the forbidden tree (Genesis 2:17). This is the most powerful affirmation of private ownership in the New Testament. In fact, it's a part of everyday life, such as the phrase, "work smarter, not harder." At a certain point, pouring more hours into a project won't help if there's something else missing.Is it not lawful for me to do what I will with mine own? Is thine eye evil, because I am good? (Matthew 20:15). Understanding diminishing returns is essential to most business ventures. They are conceptually related, but distinct.
Diminishing returns focuses on the costs per unit of input and the ability of a system to efficiently use each unit of input plugged in. Diseconomy of scale focuses on average cost measured as a function of output, and it measures what happens to the system as you increase that output. This is distinct from diminishing returns. This additional unit of output has pushed your average cost per poster back up. At the 501st printing, you need to go out and buy a new ream of paper to print only one additional poster. Let's say your customer asks for 501 posters. As output continues to grow, costs per unit of output begin to go back up. Diseconomy of scale is the point when that curve reverses.