5 ms·

I think the article misses the point. Since when do you need to "justify" getting a salary that is above average? I see it as simple as: I wanted X, I was offe

• octo_t 11y ago
  When your X is double, triple (sometimes even quadruple) the national median, I think you need to justify why you wanted (and felt entitled to) X.
  • whatok 11y ago
    Why?
  • fieryscribe 11y ago
    Why? If someone is willing to offer me X, they value what I can do at X (or more). Why does that need justification if it's some multiple of the median?
  • realusername 11y ago
    Prepare yourself for the downvotes... Every time you suggest that some people are payed too much relative to others in the society which creates massive inequality you have a rush of libertarians trying to justify that it works as expected.
  • oblio 11y ago
    That justification is usually done once, to the employer/client :)
  • jessedhillon 11y ago
    Someone felt that, even at this price, they would be able to profit from my work. Above that, what other justification could there possibly be? Or, if you are an entrepreneur, your earnings are derived from organizing and selling the work of others. Again, what other justification exists, apart from "this many people wanted to pay me this price, those guys said they would do it for me at a smaller price, and I kept the difference."
• Hytosys 11y ago
  Hierarchy requires justification, and inequality requires justification, since always and forever. You should be required to try to convince someone working three manual labor jobs and making $40k a year that your $150k salary for making CRUD apps in your underwear is morally justifiable.
  • zelos 11y ago
    Because the value of the output of the person making CRUD apps is presumably worth more than $150k to their employer, right? If a company pays its employees more than the value of their output, they'll go out of business.
    • Hytosys 11y ago
      I think this is tangential, but you're very correct! This alone makes you question the morality of capitalism. Your employer necessarily steals some of the value that you create, otherwise you would have no worth to the employer and you would either be fired or the employer would close up shop.
      • bryanrasmussen 11y ago
        well I suppose my employer adds some sort of value to what I create or it wouldn't be enough to keep them in business either. I suppose I question the value of capitalism a lot anyway, but that doesn't mean I have to justify the money I make (in fact saying I should justify the money I make implies I should not question the value of capitalism when employed by capitalists).
        • Hytosys 11y ago
          The means of production that you use are privately owned by your employer, that's all they provide. Maybe they also do some managerial/clerical labor to lubricate the interaction of the commodity with the market, but this is really only the case for small businesses. Imagine a shirt that sells for $20 on the market. The shirt is composed of $5 from raw materials and depreciated tools and $15 from your transformative labor. The boss pays you $5 for your work and makes off with $10. The boss steals way more than their investment. They'll tell you (e.g. Paul Pester from the article) that they have more responsibility: this is a bold-faced lie. Corporations are never held responsible for the havoc they wreak on society and the Earth. The result of this arrangement is the obvious wealth inequality graphs that we've all seen. This is the true injustice. The CRUD worker making $150k and the food laborer making $40k are fighting for scraps. We should focus our fighting upwards.
• parenthephobia 11y ago
  The article is about how some people choose to justify their above average salary. I don't see how it "misses the point" by not taking into account that you don't believe you need to justify your salary.
• vintermann 11y ago
  As an employee, you don't. As a citizen, sharing responsibility for the economic rules we play by, you do.