May I posit that "fair pay" is undefinable? This is based on the fact that we cannot know what certain people are "worthy" of being paid. Any effort on the part of the government or unions to make sure employees "get their fair share" will result in unintended, ill side effects.
From the goodness in our hearts, we can look at those being paid the minimum wage or below and say, They should be paid X amount. X is typically propounded as a reasonable pay rate: not too little (of course) but also not too high. What I find interesting in that reasoning is that there is a perception of economic reality, but not actual follow through on economic reality. For example, we may believe the worker in such and such factory getting paid $10.50 an hour is being paid far too little. We wax eloquent on the greed of the factory owners and give speeches on the rights of the worker. Our solution is to push for a fair wage of $20.00 an hour so he can feed his four children. We have come to this solution by investigating the financials of the factory and think the factory's profit margin is too high and therefore the leadership can afford to pay their workers $20.00/hr.
For the same factory, I think a human being is worth $1000.00/hr.
Think of all the good that would come of that pay rate! His entire
family never has to work again, he can found charities, travel, and
overall benefit himself and his neighbors. I say, forget the financials
of the company and whether they can pay that rate for very long! We are
talking about a human being here! He is worth $1000.00/hr based on his humanness.
Of course, the second scenario is completely unfeasible as it would put the factory and therefore our worker out of business but we assume the first is feasible (it's often not) because of the magic $20.00/hr rate we came up with. The defunct auto industry in Michigan illustrates what happens when third parties (unions) try to dictate a "fair wage." The Post Office is another example of lofty goals meeting with economic reality.
Both scenarios make their judgements not on the value the worker creates (his output, quality of output, attitude on the job, skill set, experience, etc.) but on the "merit" we assign to him from our perspective, which is a very slippery foundation. It is in the company's interest to pay him more as his experience increases so they don't lose him to another factory that does perceive his value and is willing to pay him commensurately.
Only the individual can decide what wage their skills are worth. Any attempt by third parties to dictate that wage is a mistake and leads to worse things than they were initially fighting against.
2 comments:
I hesitate to even comment because undoubtedly you've put more thought into this than I have (but I shouldn't feel shy about commenting on a blog dedicated to me, right? oh wait, you mean that was to the OTHER Reno's???) but my understanding is that "fair wage" is defined not by the value of a human life- which no one could afford to pay- but by the cost of living. Of course every employer is looking to assess the value of a worker's combination of time, skill, and labor, but the concern is when that value turns out to be less than than the cost of basic human needs (food, housing, etc). When the cost of keeping yourself alive outstrips the value of your labor... that is a desperate situation indeed. Now theoretically employers would have a vested interest in maintaining relatively happy and healthy employees, but if there is a surplus of labor, employers can (and do) use humans as disposable resources to be used and replaced.
Anyway, I'm certainly not saying I have any better solutions. Just rambling...
I appreciate your comment a lot MissBeth97! You are right, cost of living is often considered when determining what a "fair wage" should be and it may be a (roughly) useable metric. In my opinion, I would even challenge that method as a reliable way to determine a "fair wage" as there are too many factors wrapped up in that measurement for a government to make beneficial legislation. For instance, what factors go into "living"? How much food; what kind of food; how much shelter; what kind, relative to what; how close to the poverty line should their income be; how much for people with debilitating medical conditions; etc. My overall philosophy on this stuff stems from what some political economists have called the "knowledge problem." Since an authority can only incompletely (at best) figure this problem out, I would argue that wages that are allowed to freely adjust are the most efficient way to determine how much we each get paid. Hopefully that made sense.
Please comment more! You and your kin are far smarter than I, so I appreciate any and all input.
Post a Comment