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> There are plenty of places with pay transparency (Congress staffers for example) Imagine thinking Congressional staffer, a job - whose main value are the co

> There are plenty of places with pay transparency (Congress staffers for example) Imagine thinking Congressional staffer, a job - whose main value are the connections and opportunities available immediately after finishing a successful tour, and - for which your current employer is approximately the only possible employer for you (if you want to be rep X's staffer you need a connection and endorsement to rep X, it won't help you much to have worked for rep Y unless Y is endorsing you to X) imagine thinking these dynamics have anything to do with the common person's (or even a software engineer's) working situation. The pay is transparent precisely because there is nothing you can (or would) do about it, and the salary is not the point of the job anyhow. The reward is a lifetime of milking valuable connections and endorsements, and getting to one day feed at the same publicly funded trough as the other pigs, not a $3,500 salary increase. You do that job because it's a pipeline to lobbying and other influence-peddling scumbaggery, not because you get rich or even make a reasonable living.

Broken_Hippo 5y ago
Do you get paid to be a staffer? Do you have to be at work at certain times? Yeah, that's a job. Even if you are doing it for experience, it is still a job. Many, if not most jobs don't let you become rich or make a reasonable living, and they aren't non-jobs even if people try to say they aren't.
- paisawalla 5y ago
  This entirely obscure example, if anything, is the exception that proves the rule. Do you have an example that doesn't involve just 3e-6% of Americans, all of whom are politicians or their aspirants/sycophants -- mostly contenders for worst people in America. Maybe something a little more relatable than the system of elite influence that undergirds the Capitol? The entire point of the argument is that transparency in pay creates incentive to argue your pay, and weakens the incentive to increase your output. Here, there is a strong, shared understanding that the compensation received is not the salary, and therefore one is not underpaid in a true sense. Pay transparency wouldn't tell you much about the actual value of the job. If instead, your congressional rep helped a lazy coworker get placed at an extremely selective top lobbying firm, but only helped you (the hard worker) to get placed with the manure farmers of America -- then you might suddenly feel that you were unfairly treated. Show me that level of transparency and I could change my mind.
  - bandyaboot 5y ago
    No rational argument should ever include the phrase “exception that proves the rule.”
    - paisawalla 5y ago
      Unfortunately, the world is not full of Platonic ideals and closed-form solutions.
spaetzleesser 5y ago
“ You do that job because it's a pipeline to lobbying and other influence-peddling scumbaggery, not because you get rich or even make a reasonable living.” Not true. Congress is full of staffers who view as a regular job and do it for decades. The people who go to lobbying are a very small group.
- paisawalla 5y ago
  First, it doesn't seem like a small number or rare phenomenon to me, and I'm far from the only person who's made this connection. [0] If you've got some numbers to quantify your claim that Congress is "full of" dedicated, dutiful, lifelong civil servants, I'll be happy to see that. But, second, it doesn't take a majority to make that motivation a characterizing element of the job. Maybe some people are motivated by love of country or whatever to go earn $35,000 as a college graduate. But it doesn't mean that access to exclusive opportunity is not the well understood perk of the job, whether or not you avail yourself of it. Of all the strange stands to make in favor of radical pay transparency... I personal would think that having to defend the honor of Congressional staffers would be a strong indication that the plot has been lost. [0] https://www.opensecrets.org/revolving/top.php?display=M https://www.opensecrets.org/revolving/top.php?display=M

Broken_Hippo 5y ago

Do you get paid to be a staffer? Do you have to be at work at certain times? Yeah, that's a job. Even if you are doing it for experience, it is still a job. Many, if not most jobs don't let you become rich or make a reasonable living, and they aren't non-jobs even if people try to say they aren't.

paisawalla 5y ago
This entirely obscure example, if anything, is the exception that proves the rule. Do you have an example that doesn't involve just 3e-6% of Americans, all of whom are politicians or their aspirants/sycophants -- mostly contenders for worst people in America. Maybe something a little more relatable than the system of elite influence that undergirds the Capitol? The entire point of the argument is that transparency in pay creates incentive to argue your pay, and weakens the incentive to increase your output. Here, there is a strong, shared understanding that the compensation received is not the salary, and therefore one is not underpaid in a true sense. Pay transparency wouldn't tell you much about the actual value of the job. If instead, your congressional rep helped a lazy coworker get placed at an extremely selective top lobbying firm, but only helped you (the hard worker) to get placed with the manure farmers of America -- then you might suddenly feel that you were unfairly treated. Show me that level of transparency and I could change my mind.
- bandyaboot 5y ago
  No rational argument should ever include the phrase “exception that proves the rule.”
  - paisawalla 5y ago
    Unfortunately, the world is not full of Platonic ideals and closed-form solutions.

spaetzleesser 5y ago

“ You do that job because it's a pipeline to lobbying and other influence-peddling scumbaggery, not because you get rich or even make a reasonable living.” Not true. Congress is full of staffers who view as a regular job and do it for decades. The people who go to lobbying are a very small group.

paisawalla 5y ago
First, it doesn't seem like a small number or rare phenomenon to me, and I'm far from the only person who's made this connection. [0] If you've got some numbers to quantify your claim that Congress is "full of" dedicated, dutiful, lifelong civil servants, I'll be happy to see that. But, second, it doesn't take a majority to make that motivation a characterizing element of the job. Maybe some people are motivated by love of country or whatever to go earn $35,000 as a college graduate. But it doesn't mean that access to exclusive opportunity is not the well understood perk of the job, whether or not you avail yourself of it. Of all the strange stands to make in favor of radical pay transparency... I personal would think that having to defend the honor of Congressional staffers would be a strong indication that the plot has been lost. [0] https://www.opensecrets.org/revolving/top.php?display=M https://www.opensecrets.org/revolving/top.php?display=M