I didn’t want to like this argument but I think you have at least partially convinced me. I often feel like one of the bad parts of society is that people doing good work are paid less, but you have made a strong argument that this would be difficult to correct, since people with less moral guidance and more love of money would be more interested in high paying jobs and far less likely to take lower paying jobs that do great good.
The question then becomes how can we structure society to better align money with doing good? Or is that a lost cause?
Hmm, I don’t entirely see it that way. I think in the vast majority of cases, the talent-attracting effect of more money overpowers the benefits offered by competence signalling. That’s why I think public defenders should be paid more both as a matter of justice and because it would increase average performance on net
This brings up another very important aspect of it: the divergence of monitoring and evaluation of skill (and calculating the value of a marginal worker) between for-profit and public or non-profit work. Even for superficially similar work, the success metrics are very often different between the two styles of employment. For attorneys, the ability to attract clients and bill hours is king in the private sector, and … I’m not sure for the public sector. Probably not win rate, but more likely subjective evaluation of more senior attorneys and politicians.
It’s much clearer (still opaque for most, but somewhat less opaque) that private-sector employees are generating or protecting revenue that outstrips their compensation. Public and charity employees don’t have that scalar measure—they’re paid in a different dimension (money) than the value they generate (public goods).
I didn’t want to like this argument but I think you have at least partially convinced me. I often feel like one of the bad parts of society is that people doing good work are paid less, but you have made a strong argument that this would be difficult to correct, since people with less moral guidance and more love of money would be more interested in high paying jobs and far less likely to take lower paying jobs that do great good.
The question then becomes how can we structure society to better align money with doing good? Or is that a lost cause?
Hmm, I don’t entirely see it that way. I think in the vast majority of cases, the talent-attracting effect of more money overpowers the benefits offered by competence signalling. That’s why I think public defenders should be paid more both as a matter of justice and because it would increase average performance on net
This brings up another very important aspect of it: the divergence of monitoring and evaluation of skill (and calculating the value of a marginal worker) between for-profit and public or non-profit work. Even for superficially similar work, the success metrics are very often different between the two styles of employment. For attorneys, the ability to attract clients and bill hours is king in the private sector, and … I’m not sure for the public sector. Probably not win rate, but more likely subjective evaluation of more senior attorneys and politicians.
It’s much clearer (still opaque for most, but somewhat less opaque) that private-sector employees are generating or protecting revenue that outstrips their compensation. Public and charity employees don’t have that scalar measure—they’re paid in a different dimension (money) than the value they generate (public goods).