: Well, of course, not everyone can win a gold medal; there's only one after all. However, I would imagine that under proper circumstances anyone could compete at that level. Unfortunately, most people cannot afford t odedicate their lives to the training required to become world class. So once again we come to the old stumbling of capitalist apologists that you will never know how much the quality of human beings actually varies unless everyone is given equal opportunity in life.
----A gold medal was probably a bad example because, as you say, there is only one. However, to suggest that everyone could compete at the highest level is equally as absurd. Did you never go to school? Don't you remember athletics, where some people simply excelled and some didn't? This was to do with natural ability. Dedicating one's life to a sport is necessary to be world-class at it, but by no means sufficient. In the UK, a large proportion of young boys spend most of their spare time palying football. This is true to an even larger extent in places like Brazil. Lots of them want to become professional footballers - only a few make it. How do you explain this? It certainly isn't a class opportunity thing as most footballers are uneducated and working class.
On the more general point, even if everyone had the POTENTIAL to do everything well (the daftest thing I think i've ever heard on these pages) the practicalities of the "job sharing" ideas exponded here would mean that everyone was IN FACT able to do a large number of things at the same time. A doctor's training takes a significant part of a lifetime - it is not really conceivable that his job was done by, say, a professional footballer. Conversley, the intensity of his training means he would be unlikely to be able to do any other skilled work.
