5 hours ago
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I once worked in an equal pay collective, and the principle has always seemed a good one to me. The person who worked on reception was just as important as the managing director – their actions could be make or break for the company. I remember also meeting someone, a member of the British Communist party, who had been impressed by a visit to East Germany (at that time a communist state). It stuck in my mind that she said the incentive for people to become, for example, surgeons, was simply that, though they wouldn’t necessarily receive higher pay, it was more satisfying work than, say, being a road sweeper. So is equal pay possible, desirable even, and would it create a better society overall? Stuart Macmillan, Fife
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It would take away a lot of poverty, but it would also take away a lot of incentive to work hard and be ambitious. And I am sure as heck not going to work in the NHS, putting up with the crap that we put up with, when I could be stacking shelves in Tesco. Squeakysquirrel
I worked in both the NHS and Public Health. I loved the majority of my jobs and enjoyed the challenges. Often, when times were really tough, I’d ponder with colleagues that it would be easier to do a simple job where you worked a set number of hours, then clocked off and didn’t have to care what happened after you’d gone. Most of us concluded we’d be bored and were happier where we were. I have worked in the private sector and it was much better pay but didn’t have that sense of satisfaction at the end of the day. Babsthegardener
I do think we should move away from the current model of minimum wage, AKA what is the lowest amount I can pay my workers, and move towards a universal basic income with profit participation in every private company. Every single employee should receive a small percentage of the company’s profits every single year, even if you give the cleaners something like 0.005% and the CEO 15%. Rebeccapedia
Truly equal pay across the board wouldn’t work and would most likely create more problems. As a teacher, I wouldn’t realistically expect an astronaut to get the same as me. Equal pay isn’t as important as fair pay. A guaranteed universal income which could be used as a baseline salary could be a solution. Ambitious people would have the opportunity to earn more. A universal baseline income plus strong social support, meaning secure housing, access to quality living spaces (eg parks), education, healthcare and food, just to name a few, would lift people out of poverty without sacrificing initiative. Would a few bums freeload off the system? Of course. That’s the greatest fear of “fiscal conservatives”. They would rather starve everyone to prevent a few people getting a free lunch. Reducing real poverty would be the way to create a stronger and healthier society. KittyLady
But what is your definition of poverty? The current, official one is certainly not fit for purpose. DavyJones
There’s a lot of comments along the lines of “who would do this hard and useful job if not for money?” but the other side of the coin is that there are a lot of high-paying pointless jobs right now that provide no actual societal value. I’m in one of those and, while I reasonably enjoy it, there’s no way I’d be doing it over something more useful or fulfilling if it didn’t pay me more than double what I would be making as, say, a chef, an actor, a paramedic or a lorry driver (all careers I’ve considered). I don’t think equal pay would work in a world with our current economic setup, but it probably would in one like what was described by the article about a sustainable future economy that was published on these pages a couple of months ago. ID475743
Nice idea in theory. To work, it needs to go hand-in-hand with rent control, and free education to reduce opportunity disparities. And banning of bonuses and other incentives to short term gain as the priority. It would also increase the impact of generational wealth as a differentiator. It also seriously increases the risk of brain drain from the country, as many professions are internationally applicable. Keatsall
Equal pay would recognise that all work is valuable, and often the lowest paid work is the most valuable of all, as the pandemic “key worker” definition showed us. The Whitehall II study also showed that lower status work is actually more stressful than higher status work. I don’t think we’d end up with a shortage of doctors, etc (and I could live with a shortage of financial traders …) if pay was equal. It would have useful macroeconomic effects, too, helping to curb house price inflation, for instance, if there wasn’t a cohort of high earners bidding up prices. So there’s a lot of upsides. LauraTheEconomist
Why would anyone who could earn more elsewhere work at that [equal-pay] company and/or in that country? Or is this another idea that only works under a totalitarian world government which allows no alternative? readrichard
Truly equal pay would result in everyone living at a subsistence level, no advancement, no luxuries – you just get the basic needs for life. If enforced strictly and universally, humanity would ultimately revert to a hunter-gatherer existence. Every development in history is either enabled by inequality or by people striving to make their life easier. There’s an argument that we existed as hunter-gatherers for hundreds of thousands of years, in (somewhat) non-hierarchical societies with minimal possessions, and that worked OK. We also, in those hundreds of thousands of years, failed to invent the wheel or discover penicillin. graddef
Hard disagree. There are enough resources for everyone to have a luxurious life. If you make everyone comfortable and secure, people’s creativity and abilities will naturally be able to flourish. There is enough for everyone to have a more than decent life. Rebeccapedia
“The principle has always seemed a good one to me.” Economic decisions mustn’t be made based on gut feelings. The economy doesn’t care what makes people feel warm and fuzzy, it cares about efficiency. Capitalism allocates more capital to the endeavours that produce goods or services that more people seek. Suppose we rewind time back to the dawn of cars. Do horse carriage drivers get equal pay? How do you think the job of horse carriage drivers got phased out of society? How would an equal pay society decide they now need car technicians? What constitutes a job? Do professional thumb-twiddlers get equal pay? It’s an absolute disgrace that our education produces misconception about the economy to such an extent that the idea of equal pay holds any water. Sinacam
No, of course it wouldn’t create a better society overall. Everyone would become much, much poorer, as there wouldn’t be sufficient incentive for a lot of jobs to be done. People would somehow have to be coerced into a lot of jobs. Combined with the need to enforce equal pay, it would create a need for an authoritarian, cruel state. I wonder how long before those in charge would decide that equal pay wouldn’t apply to them? Frankly, I find it upsetting people even consider this a question worth asking. SpinDoctor13
The highest earner at any company can only earn a maximum of eight times the amount of the lowest earner. All companies to have a maximum salary cap. Any excess profits go to robust national social support programs. alexanderllewellyn
I was thinking something along the line of what you said. A range of incomes, with the lowest being good living wage and the highest having a cap, with not a huge gap between them. I like what you said about excess profits going to social support programs and other things that make the country better. kiramango
I think the discussion would be more realistic if we asked what would be the consequences if all jobs paid a living wage (however that is defined). WilliamEdwards
No, as it’s a case of supply and demand: if your profession is in short supply, you will always be in demand. And should be paid accordingly. Sagarmatha1953
Sure, but whose demand? I personally believe 99% of advertising is a waste of resources, but many people in advertising get paid quite well. There are pretty steady demands for people who look after other people: teachers, medical staff, social services, care of children and the elderly; and these services do benefit the population as a whole, but money to pay them is short. How about make sure they can get the necessary training and education, then pay them a living wage? Same for skilled workers like plumbers, electricians, barbers. The demand is there; it’s the money to train and pay these workers that’s missing. mapejrano
I’ve worked in restaurants where we pool tips and in ones where we keep our individual tips, and the tip-pooled jobs were more efficient. Human nature is not lazy. When we know people depend on us, we work hard to maintain our reputation and social standing. Our future as a species is grim if we cling to the myth of meritocracy. Changing our global society to a collective and interconnected one is daunting, but death is the alternative. bitthebeat
Surgeons and other people with professional expertise like that had a better life than road sweepers in East Germany for the simple reason that the state had invested so much into their training that they were extremely valuable. The state cared a lot more if a surgeon defected than if a road sweeper did. Similarly, people who were not productive, such as the elderly or the disabled, found it a lot easier to get permits to leave the country. There is always a market, whether or not it is expressed in monetary terms. TheMightyTics
Surgeons in East Germany were not paid the same as road sweepers. East Germany was not the communist utopia the activist may have thought it was when you visited. It was a centrally planned economy, but it used money they same way other countries did. Pay was determined centrally and the differences in pay may not have been as large as in the west, but there were certainly differences in pay. TomD42
Looking slightly askance at the question, how about people being paid more for jobs they hate, or that give more stress, or whose working conditions damage their health or limit their lives? IcommentthereforeIam
Or, whilst we’re equalising pay, we redesign the job roles and safety regimes so that money doesn’t need to compensate for poor managers, unsustainable workload, horrid commutes or risking your life. BiggerBen
We might ask why so few equal pay collectives exist or last for long. In theory it would be a great asset for a company to foster a collegiate atmosphere, rather than wasting time on internal competition. The few examples I’m aware of were isolated collectives in an otherwise capitalist world. Staff leaving became a problem when some job skills attracted higher pay elsewhere. “They never seem to work as hard as I do” views can sour working relationships.Equal pay and responsibility is a nice idea, but even in a relatively egalitarian democracy, there is probably more pushing an equal pay cooperative to split than pulling it together as a coherent business. leadballoon
