# Ok. I gotta know: the morality of disequal pay for equal work effort **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [August 24, 2009, 1:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-i-gotta-know-the-morality-of-disequal-pay-for-equal-work-effort/507447 "2009-08-24T01:46:36Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Indistinguishable](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/90ced4/32.png) [@Indistinguishable](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Indistinguishable)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2009, 3:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-i-gotta-know-the-morality-of-disequal-pay-for-equal-work-effort/507447/21 "2009-08-24T03:30:44Z")
> [@Rumor\_Watkins](#): > > I’m asking if you were a member of this society, writ large, would you feel it was a just society? I wouldn’t feel it was an injust society. I wouldn’t think the fact that people were able to trade with others for more or less according to their varying abilities to produce things which others want was an injustice in itself, regardless of whether everybody is working equally hard (whatever “working equally hard” means). ---
**Author:** ![Rumor\_Watkins](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/d9b06d/32.png) [@Rumor\_Watkins](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rumor_Watkins)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2009, 3:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-i-gotta-know-the-morality-of-disequal-pay-for-equal-work-effort/507447/22 "2009-08-24T03:35:08Z")
> [@Indistinguishable](#): > > I wouldn’t feel it was an injust society. I wouldn’t think the fact that people were able to trade with others for more or less according to their varying abilities to produce things which others want was an injustice in itself, regardless of whether everybody is working equally hard (whatever “working equally hard” means). ok. that’s all i wanted to know. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2009, 3:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-i-gotta-know-the-morality-of-disequal-pay-for-equal-work-effort/507447/23 "2009-08-24T03:37:48Z")
> [@](#): > > Please stop taking the perspective of an employer - I’m not asking you to decide how much to pay these people. I don’t care how much you think they’re worth, or how much you’d pay > > I’m asking if you were a member of this society, writ large, would you feel it was a just society? It’s impossible to disentangle the two viewpoints. Even if I’m not an employer directly, I am indirectly. When I pay to buy a new pair of shoes, I’m effectively paying the salary of someone in a shoe factory somewhere, and I’d rather pay that person as little as possible per shoe. If the shoe factory is hiring inefficient cobblers for the same amount of money as efficient ones, they’re getting less shoe for their money than they would otherwise, and so am I. That’s making things worse for me, and for everyone else in this society. Consider: Maybe that guy who’s not very good at making shoes (but by golly, he’s giving it his all!) is actually pretty good at making socks. In our society, the sock factory would offer him a better wage than the shoe factory, so he’d have an incentive to go where he can do the most good, but in this hypothetical world, he doesn’t have such an incentive. The net result is that in our world, we get the same total amount of footwear, for less total effort. And yes, that strikes me as just. ---
**Author:** ![Jerseyman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/bbce88/32.png) [@Jerseyman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jerseyman)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2009, 3:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-i-gotta-know-the-morality-of-disequal-pay-for-equal-work-effort/507447/24 "2009-08-24T03:38:17Z")
> [@StaudtCJ](#): > > With your postulations in place, I would use the analogy of a factory to illustrate why I am against. > > Person A is working as hard and as well as they possibly can, and makes 15 widgets an hour. Person B is working as hard and as well as they possibly can, and makes 25 widgets an hour. Person A and person B have the same education, etc. I think that Person B should have the opportunity to negotiate for higher pay, because the factory is making more money with his/her work per hour by selling more widgets. So despite both individuals are putting forth maximum effort, one is more EFFECTIVE. Being more effective should be rewarded. If the more effective person isn’t rewarded, why wouldn’t that person, being a normal human being, be upset that if he reduced his output to 15 widgets, he’d be docked in pay. > > Under your system, if two individuals were hired to run a mile for courier duty, the one that ran in 20 mins, because that was as fast as he could go, and he tried his best, would be paid the same as the one who ran in 6 mins. Not only would I not pay them the same, I’d probably replace the slower individual with a faster individual. What you would want then is piecework paid by quantity per period. It should be a good system but got a bad name because the quantities were set ridiculously high to actually earn anything and often (like miners) resulted in serious enough effort but some had rich seam coal and others poor and it wasn’t possible for them to tell the difference in those days. ---
**Author:** ![Rumor\_Watkins](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/d9b06d/32.png) [@Rumor\_Watkins](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rumor_Watkins)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2009, 3:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-i-gotta-know-the-morality-of-disequal-pay-for-equal-work-effort/507447/25 "2009-08-24T03:44:06Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > It’s impossible to disentangle the two viewpoints. Even if I’m not an employer directly, I am indirectly. When I pay to buy a new pair of shoes, I’m effectively paying the salary of someone in a shoe factory somewhere, and I’d rather pay that person as little as possible per shoe. If the shoe factory is hiring inefficient cobblers for the same amount of money as efficient ones, they’re getting less shoe for their money than they would otherwise, and so am I. That’s making things worse for me, and for everyone else in this society. why are they hiring or retaining inefficient cobblers, though? there’s nothing that prevents them from hiring an efficient cobbler. ---
**Author:** ![Indistinguishable](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/90ced4/32.png) [@Indistinguishable](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Indistinguishable)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2009, 3:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-i-gotta-know-the-morality-of-disequal-pay-for-equal-work-effort/507447/26 "2009-08-24T03:52:20Z")
Well, what’s their incentive to put in the work to find efficient cobblers? And what’s efficient cobblers’ incentive to choose to work cobbling? And so on. ---
**Author:** ![PBear42](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ecccb3/32.png) [@PBear42](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PBear42)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2009, 3:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-i-gotta-know-the-morality-of-disequal-pay-for-equal-work-effort/507447/27 "2009-08-24T03:54:35Z")
Cutting to the chase, your main observation is to a large extent correct. Rewards in a capitalist economy are largely doled out based on things over which the individual has little or no control. Whether this is moral depends, in part, on whether it’s right to assume work ethic out of the question. Most people are okay with the current system on the assumption it matters. Then there’s the practical problem, which you have also ruled out of bounds, that no one has figured out how to motivate people to work without disparate rewards. BTW, several books have been written developing close variations of the theme you posit here. You probably would find them interesting. Two which come to mind, off the top of my head, are _Utopia_ by Thomas More and _Walden Two_ by B.F. Skinner. Another book you might find interesting is _A Theory of Justice_ by John Rawls. ---
**Author:** ![Jerseyman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/bbce88/32.png) [@Jerseyman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jerseyman)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2009, 3:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-i-gotta-know-the-morality-of-disequal-pay-for-equal-work-effort/507447/28 "2009-08-24T03:57:06Z")
They’d make less. They want their shoes to wear out so that you will buy more and because their employees depend on them for income, it is to their advantage to do bad work too. If your shoes do not wear out, then they must become unfashionable so you’ll but again. Why produce good quality for what must be thrown away to keep the system running? Capitalism reached its zenith about 1970 and has been frantically creating the sense of poverty every since to avoid becoming socialised for the public good. ---
**Author:** ![Rumor\_Watkins](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/d9b06d/32.png) [@Rumor\_Watkins](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rumor_Watkins)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2009, 4:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-i-gotta-know-the-morality-of-disequal-pay-for-equal-work-effort/507447/29 "2009-08-24T04:00:50Z")
> [@PBear42](#): > > Cutting to the chase, your main observation is to a large extent correct. Rewards in a capitalist economy are largely doled out based on things over which the individual has little or no control. Whether this is moral depends, in part, on whether it’s right to assume work ethic out of the question. Most people are okay with the current system on the assumption it matters. Then there’s the practical problem, which you have also ruled out of bounds, that no one has figured out how to motivate people to work without disparate rewards. > > BTW, several books have been written developing close variations of the theme you posit here. You probably would find them interesting. Two which come to mind, off the top of my head, are _Utopia_ by Thomas More and _Walden Two_ by B.F. Skinner. Another book you might find interesting is _A Theory of Justice_ by John Rawls. Thanks for the book suggestions. ---
**Author:** ![Indistinguishable](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/90ced4/32.png) [@Indistinguishable](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Indistinguishable)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2009, 4:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-i-gotta-know-the-morality-of-disequal-pay-for-equal-work-effort/507447/30 "2009-08-24T04:04:05Z")
Capitalism or not, it’s already clearly the case that your life will be better or worse based on factors which are not entirely within your control; you could be born deaf, or you could yearn to write a celebrated novel and never be able to pull it off, or whatever. I guess you could label these things injustices, but what’s the point if there’s no authority you can petition to to fix them? That a society should happen to tie some other rewards to existing, inequally distributed privileges is not particularly bothersome to me, in itself. It’s the only way it could be. ---
**Author:** ![IdahoMauleMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/71c47a/32.png) [@IdahoMauleMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/IdahoMauleMan)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2009, 4:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-i-gotta-know-the-morality-of-disequal-pay-for-equal-work-effort/507447/31 "2009-08-24T04:48:06Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > It’s impossible to disentangle the two viewpoints. Even if I’m not an employer directly, I am indirectly. When I pay to buy a new pair of shoes, I’m effectively paying the salary of someone in a shoe factory somewhere, and I’d rather pay that person as little as possible per shoe. If the shoe factory is hiring inefficient cobblers for the same amount of money as efficient ones, they’re getting less shoe for their money than they would otherwise, and so am I. That’s making things worse for me, and for everyone else in this society. > > Consider: Maybe that guy who’s not very good at making shoes (but by golly, he’s giving it his all!) is actually pretty good at making socks. In our society, the sock factory would offer him a better wage than the shoe factory, so he’d have an incentive to go where he can do the most good, but in this hypothetical world, he doesn’t have such an incentive. The net result is that in our world, we get the same total amount of footwear, for less total effort. And yes, that strikes me as just. Well said. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2009, 12:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-i-gotta-know-the-morality-of-disequal-pay-for-equal-work-effort/507447/32 "2009-08-24T12:08:52Z")
> [@Rumor\_Watkins](#): > > so it’s moral for some to be rich and some to be poor for reasons that aren’t within the individual’s control? Absolutely. As moral as it is for Brad Pitt to look like Brad Pitt and me to only look like … me. And for Tiger Woods to play golf like Tiger Woods and me to only play like… well… me. Shit, for that matter, for Tiger Woods to look like Tiger Woods and me to to look like me. I think I’ll go shoot myself now. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2009, 1:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-i-gotta-know-the-morality-of-disequal-pay-for-equal-work-effort/507447/33 "2009-08-24T13:19:39Z")
> [@Rumor\_Watkins](#): > > I’m asking if you would feel a society that rewards its members differently because of something other than work effort is correct. I don’t see anything morally objectionable with paying a person who works hard at an unpleasant job more than a person who puts in an equal amount of work at a pleasant job. I see nothing morally objectionable with one person earning less money than another at a job that provides more non-financial rewards or benefits. I see nothing morally objectionable with a person earning more, not for the effort they put directly into their job, but for the uncompensated effort they previously put into developing the skills, knowledge, physique, personality, etc. that better enable them to do that job. I believe it is possible, in some situations, to “work smarter not harder,” that effort _can_ be wasted effort, and hence that effort in and of itself is not _necessarily_ a good thing deserving of reward. And, at the risk of saying “your hypo is bullshit,” there are enough disparities in people’s natural abilities, their needs, the demand for what they can do, etc. that, moral or not, different pay for the same amount of effort is just a fact of life. It’s no more worth getting upset over then gravity (though, like gravity, there are dangers involved). ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2009, 2:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-i-gotta-know-the-morality-of-disequal-pay-for-equal-work-effort/507447/34 "2009-08-24T14:47:38Z")
> [@Rumor\_Watkins](#): > > so it’s moral for some to be rich and some to be poor for reasons that aren’t within the individual’s control? It’s simple amoral reality. However, various attempts to “fix” this inequity often slide into immorality. ---
**Author:** ![Strassia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e8c25b/32.png) [@Strassia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Strassia)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2009, 3:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-i-gotta-know-the-morality-of-disequal-pay-for-equal-work-effort/507447/35 "2009-08-24T15:36:12Z")
A few of points: First, not all rewards are monetary. Many jobs have lower pay for equivalent or higher qualifications and effort involved due to intangible benefits. From personal experience, helping jobs such as social worker and school teacher earn less than jobs with similar requirements because enough people are willing to take the lower paying jobs in exchange for feeling they are helping people. Other jobs have low pay but great perks, such as forest ranger or roadie. Second, even in your hypothetical where the choice to work less hard is removed, there are still choices. Even assuming the doctor and the ditch digger work just as hard, the doctor spends at least eight years working for nothing in school while the ditch digger is earning a salary. Many high paying jobs have delayed benefits. For at least ten years after graduating high school, the ditch digger is better rewarded than the doctor. Many people have chosen the short term gain of immediately entering the workforce. Lastly, there are only so many people willing and able to do each type of job. Many salaries are based on the supply and demand of labor more than the value of the output or the labor put in. Put simply, there are fewer people who can perform brain surgery or compose hit songs than can dig a ditch or clean a toilet. I sympathize with your point to some degree. I believe most CEOs are overvalued. I think incestuous compensation committees and feedback in the industry average calculations have pushed up executive pay at a ridiculous rate. But it would also be ridiculous to expect that people who risk their lives working on high tension electrical wires to get the same pay scale as people loading groceries into bags. Jonathan ---
**Author:** ![magellan01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@magellan01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/magellan01)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2009, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-i-gotta-know-the-morality-of-disequal-pay-for-equal-work-effort/507447/36 "2009-08-24T16:51:42Z")
> [@Rumor\_Watkins](#): > > so it’s moral for some to be rich and some to be poor for reasons that aren’t within the individual’s control? Yes. Talent counts. two people can put the same effort in, but one with greater talent, i.e., strength, height, speed, mathematical aptitude, reading ability, artistic ability, will generate greater results. The person doing the paying is rightly concerned with results. That’s why it behooves people to find a line of work they are good at. ---
**Author:** ![magellan01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@magellan01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/magellan01)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2009, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-i-gotta-know-the-morality-of-disequal-pay-for-equal-work-effort/507447/37 "2009-08-24T16:53:19Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > Absolutely. As moral as it is for Brad Pitt to look like Brad Pitt and me to only look like … me. > > And for Tiger Woods to play golf like Tiger Woods and me to only play like… well… me. > > Shit, for that matter, for Tiger Woods to look like Tiger Woods and me to to look like me. > > I think I’ll go shoot myself now. Better hire me. I’m a better shot than you. ---
**Author:** ![Happy\_Poster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/c89c15/32.png) [@Happy\_Poster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Happy_Poster)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2009, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-i-gotta-know-the-morality-of-disequal-pay-for-equal-work-effort/507447/38 "2009-08-24T19:49:53Z")
Can I attempt to understand the OP, as I don’t think anyone else in thread has? Are you saying two people doing exactly the same job with precisely the same skills and other attributers as one another, and putting in exactly the same amount effort ought to be paid the same? If so I tend to agree. And so did Adam Smith. In fact this is why he was such a fan of the free market. It tends to act as such an equalizer. Indeed in a perfectly efficient market there would be no such thing as disequal pay 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Aestivalis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d6d6ee/32.png) [@Aestivalis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aestivalis)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2009, 8:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-i-gotta-know-the-morality-of-disequal-pay-for-equal-work-effort/507447/39 "2009-08-24T20:35:09Z")
I hate to bring this up, but why is effort more important than the ability to make a good decision? Lots of smart people can make bad decisions. Shouldn’t we value the worker who works less hard, but makes good decisions more than the worker who works really hard, but makes bad decisions? ---
**Author:** ![Strassia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e8c25b/32.png) [@Strassia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Strassia)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2009, 10:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-i-gotta-know-the-morality-of-disequal-pay-for-equal-work-effort/507447/40 "2009-08-24T22:02:29Z")
> [@Angry Lurker](#): > > Can I attempt to understand the OP, as I don’t think anyone else in thread has? > > Are you saying two people doing exactly the same job with precisely the same skills and other attributers as one another, and putting in exactly the same amount effort ought to be paid the same? > > If so I tend to agree. And so did Adam Smith. In fact this is why he was such a fan of the free market. It tends to act as such an equalizer. Indeed in a perfectly efficient market there would be no such thing as disequal pay 🙂 Assuming you understand the OP better than I do, then it is still fair to pay some more than others in some cases. It would be unfair to do so in instances where hard work is the only measure of outcome. For example, if you where pushing a water wheel the way Conan did, then the only measure of outcome is force and distance. Usually, there is more to a job than hard work. Skill, judgment, working with others, and many other factors can determine how much is accomplished. Jonathan [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-i-gotta-know-the-morality-of-disequal-pay-for-equal-work-effort/507447.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-i-gotta-know-the-morality-of-disequal-pay-for-equal-work-effort/507447.md?page=3)