Should all people with jobs be paid the same amount of money?

[JAR]

Should all people with jobs be paid the same amount of money?

I chose no. I think it would be communism if everyone was paid the same amount of money.

[Questioninggeller]

I don't think a Nuclear Scientist should get paid the same amount the Taco Bell worker does. I don't even think the Taco Bell worker would think they should.

[Whoracle]

What the guy above said.

[Earthborn]

I chose no. I think it would be communism if everyone was paid the same amount of money.Okay... Do you have any other argument than "it would be communism" ? Of course in no communistic country everyone was payed the same amount. Some people managed to get pretty wealthy.

I also said no. This is because I think some jobs are more necessary than others and need to attract as much people to do it as they can. I believe that wages should depend on how much a job needs to be filled. For example if there is a shortage of nurses, wages for nurses should rise. If many people want to become managers, wages for managers should fall. All people should be entitled to a minimum income, whether they work or not. If wages for a particular job should fall under that minimum, no one will be willing to do it, making it automatically more valuable... :)

[Always Free]

I say No for now but I believe in the future there will be no further use for money. We will do it a better way.

[Cain]

Oh, bah.

Who argues that everyone should get paid the same amount of money simply for having a job?

In a fairer, freer society, I think a person doing rote work (coal mines?) ought to get *more* compensation for her labor than a scientist.

"Oh, but Cain, that's unfair! Scientists have to train for years to do what they do. Their field requires above average intelligence and tireless dedication. Anyone can toil in the coal mines. I say that we let the market decide."

Sure, that question (and everyone's answer so far) makes perfect moral sense if we're granting certain assumptions:

1) Both the nuclear scientist and the taco bell worker were born into highly similar socio-economic households.

2) Both the nuclear scientist and the taco bell worker are relatively equal in terms of inborn talent rewarded by market systems (e.g. intelligence)

3) The nuclear scientist works harder than the taco bell laborer.

Between persons of equal income there is no social distinction except the distinction of merit. Money is nothing: character, conduct, and capacity are everything. Instead of all the workers being levelled down to low wage standards and all the rich levelled up to fashionable income standards, everybody under a system of equal incomes would find her and his own natural level. There would be great people and ordinary people and little people; but the great would always be those who done great things, and never the idiots whose mothers had spoiled them and whose fathers had left them a hundred thousand a year; and the little would be persons of small minds and mean characters, and not poor persons who had never had a chance. That is why idiots are always in favor of inequality of income (their only chance of eminence), and the really great in favour of equality. -- George Bernard Shaw

Any reasonably sane society, in my opinion, will seek to reward individuals in accordane to personal effort and sacrifice (indeed, proponents of markets claim exactly this). Unfortunately, intelligence is not uniformly distributed. Some people are born with genuis IQs, while others, either through an unstimulating childhood enviornment and/or genes, are left with a below average intelligence through no fault of their own.

Suppose my dear mother wins the Publisher's Clearing House prize for ten million dollars and, heaven forbid, dies shortly thereafter, leaving me nifty inheritance (big thanks to Jr. for (temporarily) getting rid of the "death tax"). So what great deed did I perform to earn this money? The answer is none, and Shaw's perfectly correct to criticize systems of primogeniture.

But consider the genetic lottery. Suppose your dear Mum leaves you incredible athletic abilities that can be exploited with relatively little effort for fame and millions.

In the example between scientist and service employee, we should take care to note not only differentials in pay, but personal empowerment and self-management. A fast-food laborer's task is repetitive, grants little in the way of personal autonomy, and the boss figure is always ready to fire you for disobeying orders. A scientist, under normal conditions I suppose, is by comparison free to do as she pleases. She generally finds her work interesting, important and, most importantly, empowering.

A better question would be: Suppose you had to work as a nuclear scientist or a taco bell employee for X hours a week. Both jobs pay the same salary Y. Which would you choose? I think most people would *still* pick the scientist.

[Lemastre]

Originally posted by Cain
Any reasonably sane society, in my opinion, will seek to reward individuals in accordane to personal effort and sacrifice (indeed, proponents of markets claim exactly this). Nowadays people seem to be paid according to their perceived value to their employers or according to what their unions can get for them. I'm not sure that personal effort and sacrifice are significant factors in determining these amounts in many cases. And I'm not sure they should be. It's possible to expend a lot of effort and sacrifice in pursuing a career that has little value to anyone else or or for which you are unsuited. How much should you get paid for this?

Suppose you had to work as a nuclear scientist or a taco bell employee for X hours a week. Both jobs pay the same salary Y. Which would you choose? I think most people would *still* pick the scientist. I would certainly pick nuclear scientist if only because I could sit down to do it and because it offers some scope for the imagination, etc. Of course, I couldn't do it because I' m not smart enough. Besides intelligence and training, many factors influence where one ends up in the workforce. Personal choice may not be the deciding one at all, even in a free society such as ours.

[aggle_rithm]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Cain

In a fairer, freer society, I think a person doing rote work (coal mines?) ought to get *more* compensation for her labor than a scientist.
[quote]

In a capitalist society, however, people are paid according to the revenue they bring in, not the amount of work they do or level of training. Thus, a relatively unskilled movie star (think Will Smith, who has only a high school education) can make many times more than a highly trained scientist.

It seems unfair sometimes, but if anyone has a better system, I'd love to hear about it.

On second thought, no, I don't want to hear about it.... ;)

[Cain]

Nowadays people seem to be paid according to their perceived value to their employers or according to what their unions can get for them. I'm not sure that personal effort and sacrifice are significant factors in determining these amounts in many cases.

Well, yes. But advocates for markets say that the person with the highest perceived value, in terms of potentially maximizing profits for the firm, is also the hardest working. We hear this all the time: the poor are poor because they're lazy. Rich folks, the overwhelming majority of them, work hard.

And I'm not sure they should be. It's possible to expend a lot of effort and sacrifice in pursuing a career that has little value to anyone else or or for which you are unsuited. How much should you get paid for this?

You're right, you're absolutely right... but that's in the context of markets. A person may work very, very hard at constructing pickle statues, but if no one thinks it has social value, how can society conscionably compensate for these putative sacrifices? The question then becomes, "how do we decide what's socially useful?" Instead of straying off topic (anymore than I already have), the central component of the discussion, I think deals with the ethical principles of renumeration. I think compensation in proportion to effort and sacrifice is far more rational and much less arbitrary than market principles.

Besides intelligence and training, many factors influence where one ends up in the workforce. Personal choice may not be the deciding one at all, even in a free society such as ours.

Fundamentally, though, most of us prefer a society where one's outcome is primarily determined by personal choices rather than arbitrary circumstances, right?

-----------------------
In a capitalist society, however, people are paid according to the revenue they bring in, not the amount of work they do or level of training. Thus, a relatively unskilled movie star (think Will Smith, who has only a high school education) can make many times more than a highly trained scientist.

A slightly off-topic aside: Will Smith, I believe, was accepted to MIT (don't ask me how I know). I'd take minor issue with words such as "unskilled" (you mean lacking a college education) and "revenue" (profits is more precise).

Your description of how the system currently functions is indisputably correct. But is it just? Are those pay differentials fair? Or consider how pharmecutical companies invest for research and development: curing diseases that afflict rich countries; creating drugs to help cure male baldness or impotence. Meanwhile, impoverished third world countries are overwhelmed by malaria.

So, okay, fine, I concede we can shrug our shoulders at some movie star making twenty million dollars a picture while a scientist toils in the lab. That's not a very big deal to me personally. But the same profit motive tells us that teenagers with acne deserve far more in the way of research and development (and marketing) then poor, diseased Africans (who are poor and diseased through no fault of their own).

[shemp]

This must be the least-controversial poll ever. So far, everyone (17) has voted No.

[arcticpenguin]

Originally posted by aggle_rithm
[QUOTE]Originally posted by Cain
[B]
n a capitalist society, however, people are paid according to the revenue they bring in, not the amount of work they do or level of training. Thus, a relatively unskilled movie star (think Will Smith, who has only a high school education) can make many times more than a highly trained scientist.

This breaks down when you get to top executives in U.S. corporations. They are paid far more than they are worth. If the company does well, it's because they are a genius. If the company does poorly, it's because of the economy.

When the corporation does poorly, they can raise the stock price by 'downsizing' valuable employees. If it does really poorly, they can float off into the sunset with their golden parachutes while the company crashes and burns.

How can they do this? Because the executives, together with the board of directors (which is made up of executives from other companies) control their salaries. They get to tell themselves how valuable they are!

[Ladewig]

I was going to post a reply dealing with CEOs being grossly overpaid, but as I did research into the subject, I realized that there are people at a wide variety of levels that are grossly overpaid (and some that are grossly underpaid). Once again, I find myself backed into the libertarian corner - the market may appear unfair, the market may even be unfair, but the market is more fair than any outside construct.

[Agammamon]

We should not be all payed the same. What we get payed is a balance between what we want and what someone is willing to pay us and partially determined by how easy we are to replace. The Taco Bell guy gets payed squat because if he quits or is fired, there can be someone in his position tomorrow. On the other hand, you cardiac surgeon gets payed alot because he provides a valuable service that not many other people can do.
Basically it comes down to supply and demand setting wages like it set prices.

[PygmyPlaidGiraffe]

All people that work should be payed the same.

But we do not live in the world of "shoulds or should nots".

CEOs should not get paid high salaries if they can not increase revenue, but they do. The market will respond, and shareholders et al are taking notice of these lucrative payouts to poor performing CEOs.

The great thing about a market economy is it can be self-correcting. As people demand accountibility and demand transparency the worth of CEOs will reflect performance. Naive, perhaps.

Complacency is not the same as laisez faire. Shareholders, investers, employees, those with pension plans, and citizens have been given a rude awakening, and they will use the hard knocks of the past few years to influence corperations.

[Underemployed]

I voted Yes.

If only so I can yuck it up at well-off people who say "Oh, you know, money really doesn't mean anything to me. It's the challenge/rewarding work/job satisfaction that matters".

While I think this is true, no-one I've ever heard saying this actually has a challenging job. Usually the reverse.

Funny how you never hear a minimum wage-slave saying money isn't everything.

Sour grapes...Yes

Let's see how many people want to be stock brokers were this to be the case. People would actively avoid high-stress jobs. Only the megalomaniacal or delusional would go for the top jobs.

Ooops...Too late to change to a No vote...

Wait a minute - those are the sort of people we already have as leaders! What's going on here?

I suggest a third option - RANDOM pay doled out by computers!

Though I suspect a high number of computer experts would mysteriously be 'selected' for high pay.

[Cain]

I was going to post a reply dealing with CEOs being grossly overpaid, but as I did research into the subject, I realized that there are people at a wide variety of levels that are grossly overpaid (and some that are grossly underpaid). Once again, I find myself backed into the libertarian corner - the market may appear unfair, the market may even be unfair, but the market is more fair than any outside construct.

Wait a second, this implies that markets are somehow "natural". Humans have been around for millions of years; market economies have only been in existence for, what, two or three-hundred years? Although, I suppose we could trace a market place back to Biblical times. Still, markets are as "outside construct[s]" as anything else -- and that's not necessarily a bad thing.

But imagine everyone in this thread is aboard a plane that crash lands on an uninhabited island. Do people begin running out to claim all the valuable resources, and if so, how does it become "their's"? Do all the rest of us just shake our heads, shrug our shoulders, and concede "Yup, he owns most of the island now. I hope I can sucessfully market my skills and abilities to trade labor for some coconuts and a warm place to sleep." Would any sane person even respect these property rights (which are constructed to the bone)? If someone broke his leg in the crash, do we leave him to fend for himself?

Has anyone read _ The Dispossessed_ by Ursula K. Le Guin?

[kittynh]

I make most of my money by my art. My job pays a laughable amount of money. Is an artist motivated by money? well, I'd produce art no matter what, but a girls gotta buy paints and brushes! But, if someone buys my work it's a validation of my vision. I'm being paid for my vision (oh, this sounds deep). What if all artists were paid the same? I guess anyone could be a professional artist then (as it is now anyone can be an artist, you just may not sell anything). Many a great artist never sold a work (though the Van Gogh thing is not as bad as it was once thought). But, most artists want to eat. The hope is that some of the good ones do.

Anyone ever read, "The Admirable Crichton" by JM Barrie?

that totally covers the deserted island theory. And I believe does it exactly as it would have worked out in reality!!!! It's also very funny!!!! What happens when the rich family and their servants end up on a deserted island? Only the butler knows!

[arcticpenguin]

Originally posted by kittynh
I make most of my money by my art. My job pays a laughable amount of money. Is an artist motivated by money? well, I'd produce art no matter what, but a girls gotta buy paints and brushes! But, if someone buys my work it's a validation of my vision. I'm being paid for my vision (oh, this sounds deep).
Silly you. You are getting paid for your vision, when instead you could be getting paid much more for filling garbage bags with air (http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/living/columnists/dave_barry/5883113.htm)

[HarryKeogh]

hmmm,you've all made interesting points. my two cents...i wish i'd win the lottery already. work stinks.

[JAR]

Originally posted by HarryKeogh
work stinks.
Talk about it.

[Tricky]

I haven't seen such a lopsided poll since Interesting Ian asked if he was making sense. (http://www.randi.org/vbulletin/showthread.php?s=&threadid=19362&perpage=40&pagenumber=1)

[WildCat]

Of course the Taco Bell employee should make as much as a heart surgeon.

Let's see, 3 tacos, a bean burrito and a Pepsi, that'll be $69.75 please. :D

But am I making a mistake here? Maybe that triple-bypass operation would only cost $10 or so...

[Whoracle]

I don't think anyone has brought this up yet, but even two taco bell employees shouldn't be paid the same. The guy who has to work to stop from drooling all over himself and never gets an order right shouldn't be paid the same as the kiss ass who does everything.

[Kodiak]

Of course no...

Without the reward of high salary, the best and brightest would have no incentive other than blind chance that they would find the work interesting or rewarding to fill important and/or specialized jobs like doctors, CEOs, professional athletes, and lawyers.

[Wile E. Coyote]

As a software engineer who sits around staring at the wall for most of the year, I have been told by friends that I have it easy. Well, perhaps that is so, and perhaps I get paid more than the average Taco Bell worker, but there is a reason for this.

I am skilled and talented at what I do. I ask my friends, "Can you do what I do?" Of course they can't. Yet my job is important and helps a lot of other people do their jobs more efficiently. In this contribution to society, I feel that I deserve a certain degree of compensation.

I am well-off because of the choices that I have made. My success is a culmination of my life choices, and I am sorry if anyone thinks a pea-brained slacker who wants to make his way through life by leeching off the system is justified.

The Star Trek vision of the future is just not possible.

[RichardR]

Originally posted by Always Free
I say No for now but I believe in the future there will be no further use for money. We will do it a better way. What way is that?

[kittynh]

Arctic!!!! Thanks for the tip man, I am packing my bags!!!!

I sometimes work for more than a month on a piece. One of my highest regarded and highly judged works took more than 6 months. That piece made it into two art journals, and toured for over a year. I WAS kind of proud of it.

But, HEY! Fill a trash bag with air and not only do you make the money, but you get fabulous world wide press (I just read Dave Berry). Want to get famous and rich in the art world? Move to England.

I'm not painting today...in depression I'll just go work in the garden. sigh....