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Wages have never been based on value produced, at any time, in any industry. Although there may be some coordination, coordination isn't necessary for wages to
by tlb 4y ago
Wages have never been based on value produced, at any time, in any industry.
Although there may be some coordination, coordination isn't necessary for wages to be unrelated to value produced, because that's the default condition. It would take some impressive central planning to have wages actually match value produced.
Doctrinaire economists used to argue that value produced sets an upper bound on pay, since why would a company pay someone more than the value they produce? But there are plenty of exceptions to that, discussed for instance in David Graeber's book Bullshit Jobs.
- wahnfrieden 4y agoI'm just pointing out the coordination because it's typical for employers to shame workers for talking pay while engaging in it themselves and lots of people I know believe it at face value. Owners shame people over it because they're scared of it because it works I loved Graeber/Wengrow's last book, transformative, need to read BS Jobs (do other yc folks read graeber? I know for instance he tears down a few points others like andreessen and horowitz take for granted as axiomatic to their ideologies based on a recent interview with them; pardon the surprise to see you reference it)
- yw3410 4y agoGraeber's essays come up from time-to-time. Philosophy usually gets upvoted quite highly.
- robocat 4y ago> Wages have never been based on value produced, at any time, in any industry Sales commissions can be value based. Equity or options as part of your employee package can potentially be value based for early employees. Although there are a lot of stories of companies reneging when a great salesperson earns too much, for example earning more than the CEO in the case of my friend, or unsurprisingly Oracle being Oracle: https://www.courthousenews.com/oracle-hit-with-150m-class-action-by-sales-staff/ https://www.courthousenews.com/oracle-hit-with-150m-class-ac...
- badpun 4y ago> Wages have never been based on value produced, at any time, in any industry. Yep. The prices of anything (incl. price of labor) are never about the value produced alone. The delivered value only sets a ceiling on the price (i.e. no one will pay for something more than they will get out of it), but, if the commodity in question is abundant, its price may be very well below the value it creates. For example, drinking water is necessary for survival, so the value it delivers is essentially infinite (i.e. you'd give anything and everything for water if you don't have any and are dying of dehydration), but at the same time it's so abundant that its actual price is almost zero.