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The value an employee creates is a function not only of their labor but also the lever they are given by the company It's amazing how often I see this asinine

by sp527 2y ago

The value an employee creates is a function not only of their labor but also the *lever they are given by the company* It's amazing how often I see this asinine argument that assumes an employee is generating value in a vacuum. Labor compensation is determined primarily by substitutability. A $200K engineer creating "$1M worth of value" is not automatically deserving of a higher wage unless there is no one else willing to do that engineer's job for $200K.

no_wizard 2y ago
The business doesn’t really function without someone actually producing the work. Please tell me why executives are so much more entitled to profits than the people down the chain? I’m not saying don’t people pay well but the executives - non executive power balance is huge and I don’t see how a person can deny this. Materially executives are also rarely helped accountable for their terrible decisions or layoffs would actually be laid at their feet. Labor market imbalances of power are well documented and easily discoverable. It’s really plain at this point that material productivity gains have almost entirely been funneled to the top, with workers benefitting very little. Wages have not kept pace with productivity gains since the 1970s, even if you include the recent blip of wage increases they aren’t meaningful in the grand scheme of things. I don’t know why we just accept these as truths or whatever cause they don’t have to be
- sp527 2y ago
  None of what you said is relevant to the core point that labor compensation is determined primarily by substitutability. As for why we "accept" that, it's because it makes rational sense. Why would anyone offer more to someone to do what someone else will do for less?
  - no_wizard 2y ago
    We accept it culturally as we have driven away the narrative of labor having an equitable stake in the economy. That much is clear. I'm not a fan of the status quo. Things should change.
    - sp527 2y ago
      In your fictional utopia, you would need practically every single company in the world to agree to pay labor in excess of the rate dictated by market forces. Any company that deviates from that would have a considerable competitive advantage and quickly usurp its market. This is so categorically obvious that I hesitate to call it economics. It's not even just human nature. This is so self-evident that it may very well be a bedrock principle of sentience.

The value an employee creates is a function not only of their labor but also the *lever they are given by the company* It's amazing how often I see this asinine

by sp527 2y ago

no_wizard 2y ago

The business doesn’t really function without someone actually producing the work. Please tell me why executives are so much more entitled to profits than the people down the chain? I’m not saying don’t people pay well but the executives - non executive power balance is huge and I don’t see how a person can deny this. Materially executives are also rarely helped accountable for their terrible decisions or layoffs would actually be laid at their feet. Labor market imbalances of power are well documented and easily discoverable. It’s really plain at this point that material productivity gains have almost entirely been funneled to the top, with workers benefitting very little. Wages have not kept pace with productivity gains since the 1970s, even if you include the recent blip of wage increases they aren’t meaningful in the grand scheme of things. I don’t know why we just accept these as truths or whatever cause they don’t have to be

sp527 2y ago
None of what you said is relevant to the core point that labor compensation is determined primarily by substitutability. As for why we "accept" that, it's because it makes rational sense. Why would anyone offer more to someone to do what someone else will do for less?
- no_wizard 2y ago
  We accept it culturally as we have driven away the narrative of labor having an equitable stake in the economy. That much is clear. I'm not a fan of the status quo. Things should change.
  - sp527 2y ago
    In your fictional utopia, you would need practically every single company in the world to agree to pay labor in excess of the rate dictated by market forces. Any company that deviates from that would have a considerable competitive advantage and quickly usurp its market. This is so categorically obvious that I hesitate to call it economics. It's not even just human nature. This is so self-evident that it may very well be a bedrock principle of sentience.