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People say they want equal pay for equal work. But they don't like some people getting paid more, even though they do more work. People who leverage technolog

People say they want equal pay for equal work. But they don't like some people getting paid more, even though they do more work. People who leverage technology to create and sell more value take home more money. Those that haven't figured out how to do that or don't care to, don't. We have machines and systems that enable a person to multiply their efforts. Yes, we do. That's why some people make ridiculous amounts of money. They produce something and manage to deliver it to large numbers of people. What amazes me is that people familiar with computers and startups still don't understand the effects of technology. Those who command technology have more power than those who do not. And societies that fail to grasp that will fail to compete with those that do.

nisa 13y ago
Your comment basically outlines the status quo. It's not working too well... you also make some assumptions that are debatable... > People say they want equal pay for equal work. But they don't like some people getting paid more, even though they do more work. teachers and firefighters? nurses? doctors? There is just no relation to wallstr. and the lucky startup guy... learning ruby on rails and implementing an idea is worthwhile, however I'm not sure if working hard as a teacher or other jobs is not more worthwhile for society at large... pay does not account for that. besides that having basic necessitates covered e.g. health/hunger/living takes a lot of pain and crime out of a society. > People who leverage technology to create and sell more value take home more money. Those that haven't figured out how to do that or don't care to, don't. Technology will save us all! It's not true. It's where growth is at the moment, it's where money can be made. Everyone in your train to work that plays with his smartphone paid for it over the last years... some people got rich over it... this has nothing to do how to have a good society > And societies that fail to grasp that will fail to compete with those that do. Competition of societies is bullshit. Let's compete on public healthcare, on poverty and homelessness numbers? On social equality.. Who is the winner?
- noonespecial 13y ago
  Everyone in your train to work that plays with his smartphone paid for it over the last years... some people got rich over it... this has nothing to do how to have a good society But isn't that part of better society. People keep grinding on the fact that wages have been stagnant etc, but everyone has a smartphone and a wall-sized TV when before they didn't. Is it worth letting some people get obscenely wealthy if everyone gets to have a smartphone in recompense? What really seems to be happening is a blind spot when it comes to housing and healthcare that's preventing those sectors from keeping up.
dannypgh 13y ago
A defining characteristic of capitalism is that profits go to the owners of the means of production, not those who actually produce. It's not the person who uses the machine that multiplies their effort that make ridiculous amounts of money, it's the the owners of the machines that do. And as time passes, the set of people who own the machines and the set of people who built the machines will presumably only continue to diverge. Taken to the extreme, you reach a point at which machines can run entire businesses. Profits will go straight to the owners of the machines. To look at it another way - labor is not priced based on productivity of labor, but rather, supply and demand. As we continue to become more productive there's little reason to think that those who are becoming more productive are those who are earning more. Indeed, looking at a graph of real wages versus productivity over time (quick googling yields http://thecurrentmoment.wordpress.com/2011/08/18/productivity-inequality-poverty/ http://thecurrentmoment.wordpress.com/2011/08/18/productivit... ) it's hard to imagine that labor's share of wealth isn't decreasing. This is not a surprising result; as it's supply and demand that sets the price of labor, the impact of replacing people with machines is that there's greater supply on the job market (everyone who is out of a job) combined with less demand (as most industries aren't constrained on number of people they can hire).
- pdonis 13y ago
  It's not the person who uses the machine that multiplies their effort that make ridiculous amounts of money, it's the the owners of the machines that do. The obvious solution to this is that the person who uses the machine should also own it. Which means that people who think of themselves as "labor" should be looking for industries where they can own the technology that multiplies their productivity. Such as, just an example off the top of my head, programming. :-)
  - dannypgh 13y ago
    I don't know about you, but my employer owns my work product via an intellectual property assignment agreement, that I signed as a condition of employment. In addition, our operation requires very expensive datacenters, which they clearly own, not any of the employees. Or even all of the employees, taken together. So, I write programs, but I neither own them nor the systems that are required to run them. Taken collectively, the employees at my job have created a very profitable machine, in that it brings in revenue that greatly exceeds the market cost of building the machine. This profit goes to shareholders, not employees, and an employee by virtue of an employee will not receive any share of the revenue created by their work after they leave their company. Yes, I am partially paid in stock, and this means I am at times part-owner. But this can be seen as a coincidence and doesn't really significantly alter the power dynamic. I say this because it is ultimately part of our compensation, and the fact that they choose to pay us some shares (and correspondingly less cash) is more of an accounting trick then a fundamental shift in the employee-employer relation.
rfrey 13y ago
This point of view is appealing but doesn't match observation. "Some people getting paid more, even thought they do more work" -- I don't see a correlation between hard work and high pay. Musicians and professional athletes only "work hard" compared to a bricklayer if you completely pervert the meaning of the words. "those who command technology have more power than those who do not". The power brokers and very rich in our society are only tangentially connected to technology. There is no interpretation of the power structures in western society that could lead one to think that command of technology leads to power or influence.
- argonaut 13y ago
  I think stretchwithme meant to say "though they create more value"
  - rfrey 13y ago
    You're probably right. It's hard to pin down what's meant by value though. To an economist it's economic contribution, so it becomes a tautology to say people who make more money or build bigger companies create more value. It gets more interesting when the definition of 'value' is less technical and more common: providing some benefit or capital-g-Good to society. But those discussions are not well conducted over the internet, or anywhere in fact where scotch whiskey is unavailable. And in any event, most people would probably agree THAT definition of value is also unconnected to wealth.
  - stretchwithme 13y ago
    No, I think people who work 80 hours a week making twice what someone who works 40 DOES bother some people. And then there are people that worked for years to develop a capability and get paid for doing it for 20 minutes. Somehow that's supposed to be equal to 20 minutes of hamburger slinging. People pay for value, not how long it took to produce it or whether it took years. It is impossible for some authority to somehow do a better job of judging value than millions of people spending their own money on things they value. There many, many considerations and what others value is not ours to cast aside because we think particular deals don't make sense. But that is the objective, to get government to somehow fix this "problem", as if all the interventions and subsidies and taxes towards that end don't even exist.
dmschulman 13y ago
The economic conditions and market factors of running a business in the United States have also contributed to this system, allowing almost any citizen the opportunity to "make it". Many have benefitted from this system, some significantly. The protections and opportunities afforded to these businesses and business people has as much to do with their financial success as it does with the amount of hard work they've put in to building their companies. There is an argument to be made that these ultra wealthy citizens almost have a responsibility to give back to the lawmakers, regulators, officials, and economy of the country which has enabled them to rise to such economic heights.

nisa 13y ago

Your comment basically outlines the status quo. It's not working too well... you also make some assumptions that are debatable... > People say they want equal pay for equal work. But they don't like some people getting paid more, even though they do more work. teachers and firefighters? nurses? doctors? There is just no relation to wallstr. and the lucky startup guy... learning ruby on rails and implementing an idea is worthwhile, however I'm not sure if working hard as a teacher or other jobs is not more worthwhile for society at large... pay does not account for that. besides that having basic necessitates covered e.g. health/hunger/living takes a lot of pain and crime out of a society. > People who leverage technology to create and sell more value take home more money. Those that haven't figured out how to do that or don't care to, don't. Technology will save us all! It's not true. It's where growth is at the moment, it's where money can be made. Everyone in your train to work that plays with his smartphone paid for it over the last years... some people got rich over it... this has nothing to do how to have a good society > And societies that fail to grasp that will fail to compete with those that do. Competition of societies is bullshit. Let's compete on public healthcare, on poverty and homelessness numbers? On social equality.. Who is the winner?

noonespecial 13y ago
Everyone in your train to work that plays with his smartphone paid for it over the last years... some people got rich over it... this has nothing to do how to have a good society But isn't that part of better society. People keep grinding on the fact that wages have been stagnant etc, but everyone has a smartphone and a wall-sized TV when before they didn't. Is it worth letting some people get obscenely wealthy if everyone gets to have a smartphone in recompense? What really seems to be happening is a blind spot when it comes to housing and healthcare that's preventing those sectors from keeping up.

dannypgh 13y ago

A defining characteristic of capitalism is that profits go to the owners of the means of production, not those who actually produce. It's not the person who uses the machine that multiplies their effort that make ridiculous amounts of money, it's the the owners of the machines that do. And as time passes, the set of people who own the machines and the set of people who built the machines will presumably only continue to diverge. Taken to the extreme, you reach a point at which machines can run entire businesses. Profits will go straight to the owners of the machines. To look at it another way - labor is not priced based on productivity of labor, but rather, supply and demand. As we continue to become more productive there's little reason to think that those who are becoming more productive are those who are earning more. Indeed, looking at a graph of real wages versus productivity over time (quick googling yields http://thecurrentmoment.wordpress.com/2011/08/18/productivity-inequality-poverty/ http://thecurrentmoment.wordpress.com/2011/08/18/productivit... ) it's hard to imagine that labor's share of wealth isn't decreasing. This is not a surprising result; as it's supply and demand that sets the price of labor, the impact of replacing people with machines is that there's greater supply on the job market (everyone who is out of a job) combined with less demand (as most industries aren't constrained on number of people they can hire).

pdonis 13y ago
It's not the person who uses the machine that multiplies their effort that make ridiculous amounts of money, it's the the owners of the machines that do. The obvious solution to this is that the person who uses the machine should also own it. Which means that people who think of themselves as "labor" should be looking for industries where they can own the technology that multiplies their productivity. Such as, just an example off the top of my head, programming. :-)
- dannypgh 13y ago
  I don't know about you, but my employer owns my work product via an intellectual property assignment agreement, that I signed as a condition of employment. In addition, our operation requires very expensive datacenters, which they clearly own, not any of the employees. Or even all of the employees, taken together. So, I write programs, but I neither own them nor the systems that are required to run them. Taken collectively, the employees at my job have created a very profitable machine, in that it brings in revenue that greatly exceeds the market cost of building the machine. This profit goes to shareholders, not employees, and an employee by virtue of an employee will not receive any share of the revenue created by their work after they leave their company. Yes, I am partially paid in stock, and this means I am at times part-owner. But this can be seen as a coincidence and doesn't really significantly alter the power dynamic. I say this because it is ultimately part of our compensation, and the fact that they choose to pay us some shares (and correspondingly less cash) is more of an accounting trick then a fundamental shift in the employee-employer relation.

rfrey 13y ago

This point of view is appealing but doesn't match observation. "Some people getting paid more, even thought they do more work" -- I don't see a correlation between hard work and high pay. Musicians and professional athletes only "work hard" compared to a bricklayer if you completely pervert the meaning of the words. "those who command technology have more power than those who do not". The power brokers and very rich in our society are only tangentially connected to technology. There is no interpretation of the power structures in western society that could lead one to think that command of technology leads to power or influence.

argonaut 13y ago
I think stretchwithme meant to say "though they create more value"
- rfrey 13y ago
  You're probably right. It's hard to pin down what's meant by value though. To an economist it's economic contribution, so it becomes a tautology to say people who make more money or build bigger companies create more value. It gets more interesting when the definition of 'value' is less technical and more common: providing some benefit or capital-g-Good to society. But those discussions are not well conducted over the internet, or anywhere in fact where scotch whiskey is unavailable. And in any event, most people would probably agree THAT definition of value is also unconnected to wealth.
- stretchwithme 13y ago
  No, I think people who work 80 hours a week making twice what someone who works 40 DOES bother some people. And then there are people that worked for years to develop a capability and get paid for doing it for 20 minutes. Somehow that's supposed to be equal to 20 minutes of hamburger slinging. People pay for value, not how long it took to produce it or whether it took years. It is impossible for some authority to somehow do a better job of judging value than millions of people spending their own money on things they value. There many, many considerations and what others value is not ours to cast aside because we think particular deals don't make sense. But that is the objective, to get government to somehow fix this "problem", as if all the interventions and subsidies and taxes towards that end don't even exist.

dmschulman 13y ago

The economic conditions and market factors of running a business in the United States have also contributed to this system, allowing almost any citizen the opportunity to "make it". Many have benefitted from this system, some significantly. The protections and opportunities afforded to these businesses and business people has as much to do with their financial success as it does with the amount of hard work they've put in to building their companies. There is an argument to be made that these ultra wealthy citizens almost have a responsibility to give back to the lawmakers, regulators, officials, and economy of the country which has enabled them to rise to such economic heights.