I'm saying that people who accept less pay do it because they consider other factors that compensate. Those factors could be anything, and are subjective in the

I'm saying that people who accept less pay do it because they consider other factors that compensate. Those factors could be anything, and are subjective in the sense they vary for individuals. It's very common to suggest that public servants are motivated by something other than to selflessly serve the public. For example, gold plated health insurance. What I'm claiming as a general principle is that some people have a huge advantage in opportunity cost for a certain job, and organizations can be seriously affected by concentrating those people together. And we see this all over the place. Consider the Abu Ghraib scandal. It's not that joining the military entails that sort of thing, or that it's rightly part of the job, but if someone has an affinity for abusing prisoners, then most jobs do not offer the same opportunity. Theoretically, decent people who value doing good should be attracted to jobs that are important and underpaid, but in practice, bad people who value side benefits to an extreme degree may dominate the market of people who will take the job.