Sigh... guess I need to educate Xeno.

Kemp wait two days before replying... or you will provide him a way out and I don't want that.

Xeno you clearly do not understand Ambition as it relates to the Human Equation.

All humans, from those barely able to think for themselves to the smartest have ambitions..

These ambitions range from having a family, to running for office, to becoming a minister to even getting filthy rich. Also a human is not limited to just one ambition.

My ambitions include (but are not limited to): Marriage, learn Tagalog and at least one more language, run successfully for office, change opinions of others to Conservatism, have a large family, learn high end science, and get some doctorates in math, science, and possibly security.

Everyone has ambitions but some are harder to achieve. My dream of multiple doctorates is going to be very hard unless I significantly increase my income. I can surely get one but the rest... may prove difficult.

Then people choose the means to their ambitions based up how ambitious they really are. I am extremely ambitious so I chose a very hard line of work (as an A type it is hard to sit still and stare at the horizon all day and night. So I do compensate by reading a lot but it still is not enough sometimes)

Not all doctors went there because they saw the field as their dream... they went there because they knew they could do it, that it paid real well, and that it would help them meet their desires (aka ambitions).

For example if fishing (boring now to me, can't stand waiting for the bite) paid $50,000 and trucking $30,000 I would for sure be fishing (no degree needed nor specialized background after all).

Now the fisherman is a bit different than a man fishing... but since I am injured it precludes me from choosing thatbline of work.

I don't feel the need to be rich but some of my dreams require it. So I study how to get rich, I plan, I am preparing to save and so forth.

The human factor also in this effort shows that ambitions change with what is available. I once aspired to be a General, or at least a Coloneel in the army... but my injury precludes this. So my ambitions changed after a re-evaluation.

In your world a person who earns to much will get taxed to a much lower level. This means few would have even dreams of getting rich so they would never have the ambition to get rich via hard work.

This means they settle for what they can achieve.

An example:

A doctor is a high paid person currently. However it takes a lot of schooling to become one, you are sued frequently, you are very tightly regulated, the work can be hard, the hours can be long...

Yet a nurse is a lower degree, they are not often sued, they usually have better shifts, there are not as many regulations, and so forth.

So if after a change in taxation they both earn the same... why would even five percent consider becoming doctors?

Another way for you. If you limit what ambitions are possible people will be less ambitious, will produce less, will make ambitions which do not further society.

Steve Jobs had an ambition to make a personal computer. He suceeded. He then dreamed (had ambitions torwards) of providing computers for schools, governments, companies, and more. He also desired (had ambitions for) to make money.

Later in life he wanted to make his phone the only smart phone on the market, he made a really good one and then he made a tablet pc. He was not first in either but his ambitions to make the best resulted in the (then) best.

So let's see what my goals are in light of my ambitions:
1) Running for office... now... but losing almost for sure now... so I try again later in life.
2) Saving at least $100,000 dollars for school (estimated time three years from start of saving)
3) I am on a modified Atkins Diet and will also save for Dental and Liposuction in a cheap country. I have my passport already so that step is completed. Need about $8000 to make sure all gets done. Estimated time is Febuary. (This will bring my actractiveness up and make me capable of hunting a bride down)
4) making people change their minds on global warming is happening this Fall I suspect. Estimated cost $10,000.

Now if I was limited to earning $30,000 a year then my dreams change. Aka my ambitions suffer. I can forget about politics entirely, and my dreams for college seem very distant at near ten years of savings. I won't be able to have such a big family either.

Suddenly I also would question trucking. It is very hard work! Instead I could go to a cheap (to live in) State and get a job as security making as much as trucking (or near so if you tax that heavily to) and hav e it so easy it is rediculous.

Same for a garvage man, a sewer worker, a pilot, a stock market analyst, and so forth.

I work near 70 hours a week for my high pay. There are some who work a hundred hours a week for their (higher than mine) high pay.

Ambitions drive us to try, to strive harder.... when everything is limitless then our dreams are the limits. When we are walled in then the walls are the limits of our dreams.