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Economically, a good chunk of unequal outcomes are a necessary evil in order to incentivize the behavior necessary for an efficient economy. If being a high-ran

Economically, a good chunk of unequal outcomes are a necessary evil in order to incentivize the behavior necessary for an efficient economy. If being a high-ranking corporate officer didn't pay better than lower-ranking ones, nowhere near as much work would be put into competing to climb the corporate ladder. You can read more about it by getting into Tournament Theory, but the basic gist is this: "winners" get paid more than their output is worth, "losers" less, but the average participant's compensation tends to be proportional to the average value of work. It's useful when the difficulty of measuring output is so burdensome to make piece-work uneconomical. There's other categories where the pay incentives are necessary. Taking on physically dangerous, unpleasant, or taxing work (eg, oilfield workers), or doing jobs that require a large investment in skill development (doctors, software developers). If you don't have the pay differential, a lot of important jobs just won't get done. >Is it really worth chasing when the end goal is trying to label individuals based on a set of predetermined qualities? It absolutely makes a big difference when it comes to public policy. If the unequal outcomes are because one sub-group is more willing to take the risks we want to avoid or develop the skills we don't have time to learn, it's extremely counterproductive to try to fix those outcomes. The inequality is the price we pay to get people to do things they'd rather not. Backtracking on these incentive gradients is short-sighted at best.

wolco 7y ago
"If being a high-ranking corporate officer didn't pay better than lower-ranking ones, nowhere near as much work would be put into competing to climb the corporate ladder." I disagree a lot of people seek a higher ranking job because of power. Once they have the power they give themselves more. Would you rather clean bathrooms or tell others when to clean them for the same pay?
- 0815test 7y ago
  > I disagree a lot of people seek a higher ranking job because of power. Maybe, but those are not the sorts of people you want in high-ranking jobs, as a general rule. So it still makes sense to explicitly reward competence as an alternative.

wolco 7y ago

"If being a high-ranking corporate officer didn't pay better than lower-ranking ones, nowhere near as much work would be put into competing to climb the corporate ladder." I disagree a lot of people seek a higher ranking job because of power. Once they have the power they give themselves more. Would you rather clean bathrooms or tell others when to clean them for the same pay?

0815test 7y ago
> I disagree a lot of people seek a higher ranking job because of power. Maybe, but those are not the sorts of people you want in high-ranking jobs, as a general rule. So it still makes sense to explicitly reward competence as an alternative.