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A toolmaker makes his living by taking a 80 cent piece of wood and a $2 piece of metal and combining them into a hammer which he can sell for $15. A manager mak
by shalmanese 16y ago
A toolmaker makes his living by taking a 80 cent piece of wood and a $2 piece of metal and combining them into a hammer which he can sell for $15. A manager makes his living by taking a $80,000 employee and a $200,000 employee and combining them into a business unit which is worth $1.5M.
Neither is any more immoral than the other and neither captures more than their fair share of value.
- tastybites 16y agoRight, in theory. But in reality, in any organization of sufficient size, you have a lot of people who don't actually do anything creative clamoring to capture that excess value generated by the people at the bottom (and at the top!). These are the people you are trying to push out, not the productive, well compensated people.
- hallmark 16y agoI'm sorry, but this analogy is too loose for me; I must rebut. Suppose the toolmaker maintains these profits by keeping his thumb on the wood-seller who can barely support his family selling 80 cent pieces of wood. If the toolmaker paid the wood-seller $1 or $1.30, this would be more in line with what the wood is worth. The fairness of these price points can be argued. Now we're back to considering whether engineers are underpaid!