3 ms·

I understand all very well that and I even believe that what you say is (simplified and idealized [see below] but) true. I'm not arguing on facts (not now), I'm

by p4bl0 9y ago

I understand all very well that and I even believe that what you say is (simplified and idealized [see below] but) true. I'm not arguing on facts (not now), I'm arguing on political opinion about what is best for society: I prefer people cooperating together (e.g., to build a decent social security system) than competing against each other (like in your examples). > It would be dishonest to claim that the effect I wrote in italics does not exist. We totally agree on that, except this is one of the reason why I'm in favor of public salaries :). A question that might be worth asking is: why do one would need so much more money than others have? If it is because life is expensive and you need this much money to live decently, eat sane food, have your kids educated, pay for your own health care, and put money aside for your retirement, then what do we do as a society for those who can't have this much money? Alice may be twice as productive as Bob, Fob, and Gob, but are her life and the lives of her children twice as important that those of the Xobs and their children? I think this is actually the point of disagreement in our discussion. In practice, if people cooperate, they can collectively (I'm talking nation-wide, not company by company) obtain good social security, free education, good and affordable health care, good retirement plan, good public infrastructures, etc. All this would be paid for by social contributions, which could lower people's direct salaries, but those social contributions are nothing else but indirect (and collectivized) salaries. In such a society, what is the point for Alice to be paid twice as much as the Xobs? Now from the discussion I know that the counter argument to my point would be that if Alice is not paid twice as much then why should she bother being twice as productive? My answer is: good for her! If she really likes her job then she doesn't need money as an incentive to do it as working is what makes her happy. If she doesn't like her job, then she's better of working less. And an additional Xobs can find a job doing what Alice isn't doing anymore because she neither needs nor wants to. --- [] Now I'm getting back at why your example is idealized: secret salaries and the necessity to individually negotiate for your salary is known to have undesirable effects, such as women being paid less. Studies show that in our cultures and societies women are undervalued and have a tendency to underestimate themselves, while men have the opposite tendency. So in practice it may not be Alice who is paid more than the Xobs, even thought she's twice as productive.

charlesdm 9y ago
> My answer is: good for her! If she really likes her job then she doesn't need money as an incentive to do it as working is what makes her happy. Maybe she's just good at something, but doesn't actually like her job? More money now means less work later on. Or she could achieve the same results as bob, fob and gob, in half the time, thus work 2.5 days a week. Why are people so focused on equality? All people are equal, but their ability isn't. Some people are better at sports, others are better at intellectual pursuits. Some have better social skills, etc. I'm good at building stuff, but not so good at playing sports. I would expect to earn much more building stuff than I do playing sports. Aside from the material discussion (I don't really care about that), having more money in the bank means 1) having more leverage in negotiations, and 2) more freedom. And past a certain point, it means independence. You'd be surprised how many people make 100K+ a year from investment, just living a full life (e.g. seeing their kids grow up) and doing what they love. Work can be fun, but it's still work. To me at least, half the fun went away when I had to start doing it for money and because of this I reorganised my life to account for that.
fpig 9y ago
My opinion is that income solidarity should be achieved through the tax system. This way it can be fine-tuned to the wishes and needs of the society and everything is "clean". Additional sources of "hidden" solidarity like my example with Alice are in my opinion unnecessary and counterproductive. Companies should be left to pay people exactly how much they value them to ensure maximum efficiency, then taxes can reduce these differences to the extent the society desires. Politics aside, even in a system where every company must have public salaries to avoid disadvantaging those who do, the system would still be inefficient. A company that hires only "Alice-level" developers can pay Alice 100 as they pay everyone roughly that amount. They don't suffer from this effect. A company that hires Bobs finds it hard to hire and keep some Alices (exactly what happened at my first job, I wasn't the first nor the last young guy in that position to quit quickly when I realized what the deal was) as long as it mostly hires Bobs. And Bobs also need to work somewhere. This basically gives companies a strong economic incentive to stick to a similar level of talent when hiring, which is a market inefficiency, and to developers of similar skill level to accumulate in the same companies. So with time, Alice ends up working at a company with other Alices and they are being paid 100, while Bob is working with Fob and Gob and being paid 50. This is actually an aspect of another, more general problem with salary solidarity: if you overpay your lower-value employees, and underpay your high-value employees, this gives the lower-value employees the incentive to take the job and stay forever, and the higher-value employees the incentive to not even accept the job or eventually leave for a job that doesn't underpay them. Over time, you're accumulating lower-value overpaid employees. Government jobs are an extreme example of this problem (in my country at least) as there is a high level of salary solidarity there. Paying people what they're worth in gross salary, and then achieving solidarity through taxes at least solves this problem within 1 country. It still doesn't solve it internationally (as the highly productive people still have the option to jump ship to countries with less solidarity, but this is not as bad as people are not as quick to emigrate as they are to switch jobs).

by p4bl0 9y ago

charlesdm 9y ago

> My answer is: good for her! If she really likes her job then she doesn't need money as an incentive to do it as working is what makes her happy. Maybe she's just good at something, but doesn't actually like her job? More money now means less work later on. Or she could achieve the same results as bob, fob and gob, in half the time, thus work 2.5 days a week. Why are people so focused on equality? All people are equal, but their ability isn't. Some people are better at sports, others are better at intellectual pursuits. Some have better social skills, etc. I'm good at building stuff, but not so good at playing sports. I would expect to earn much more building stuff than I do playing sports. Aside from the material discussion (I don't really care about that), having more money in the bank means 1) having more leverage in negotiations, and 2) more freedom. And past a certain point, it means independence. You'd be surprised how many people make 100K+ a year from investment, just living a full life (e.g. seeing their kids grow up) and doing what they love. Work can be fun, but it's still work. To me at least, half the fun went away when I had to start doing it for money and because of this I reorganised my life to account for that.

fpig 9y ago

My opinion is that income solidarity should be achieved through the tax system. This way it can be fine-tuned to the wishes and needs of the society and everything is "clean". Additional sources of "hidden" solidarity like my example with Alice are in my opinion unnecessary and counterproductive. Companies should be left to pay people exactly how much they value them to ensure maximum efficiency, then taxes can reduce these differences to the extent the society desires. Politics aside, even in a system where every company must have public salaries to avoid disadvantaging those who do, the system would still be inefficient. A company that hires only "Alice-level" developers can pay Alice 100 as they pay everyone roughly that amount. They don't suffer from this effect. A company that hires Bobs finds it hard to hire and keep some Alices (exactly what happened at my first job, I wasn't the first nor the last young guy in that position to quit quickly when I realized what the deal was) as long as it mostly hires Bobs. And Bobs also need to work somewhere. This basically gives companies a strong economic incentive to stick to a similar level of talent when hiring, which is a market inefficiency, and to developers of similar skill level to accumulate in the same companies. So with time, Alice ends up working at a company with other Alices and they are being paid 100, while Bob is working with Fob and Gob and being paid 50. This is actually an aspect of another, more general problem with salary solidarity: if you overpay your lower-value employees, and underpay your high-value employees, this gives the lower-value employees the incentive to take the job and stay forever, and the higher-value employees the incentive to not even accept the job or eventually leave for a job that doesn't underpay them. Over time, you're accumulating lower-value overpaid employees. Government jobs are an extreme example of this problem (in my country at least) as there is a high level of salary solidarity there. Paying people what they're worth in gross salary, and then achieving solidarity through taxes at least solves this problem within 1 country. It still doesn't solve it internationally (as the highly productive people still have the option to jump ship to countries with less solidarity, but this is not as bad as people are not as quick to emigrate as they are to switch jobs).