Duty and self-respect before material payoff
Some necessary work only happens for self-respect and sense of duty. If material benefit is the prime objective, that work will not be done at the scale a society needs.
There are forms of effort that only happen for self-respect and a sense of duty, not because the material benefit is the main prize. Training people, holding a standard, staying with a regional problem when exit would be easier: these are rarely optimised by pure private return in the short term.
I have said in plain words that duty is dharma, and that it is required for the long run, not only for ceremonial days. That does not cancel the need for livelihoods. It says that a society which can only mobilise effort when the spreadsheet pays immediately will under-produce the goods that keep it serious: character, capability, and people who will carry responsibility when no one is watching.
From X
Derived from posts on X as devendrasm: