Source identified
Read & copy the quotation
“Where there is no inducement to exceed a certain minimum, the minimum comes to be the maximum.”
- Date
- 1861
Meaning of “Where there is no inducement to exceed a…”
Mill warns that systems which reward only a minimum standard tend to normalize that floor as the practical ceiling, reducing incentives for greater effort or attainment.
Where does it come from?
Considerations on Representative Government (1861), Chapter XIV, “Of the Executive in a Representative Government,” Project Gutenberg #5669. During Mill’s discussion of first appointments to the permanent public service and competitive examinations, he warns that where only a minimum is required, that minimum tends to become the practical maximum. The sentence remains institutional analysis of public-service selection and education, not generic employee-management advice.
