'Equal pay is unfair because it discounts experience'

[Pogue]

This was used against me in a debate about communism recently, when I proposed that people should be paid according to effort or according to need. The people I argued against said thats unfair because although say an apprentice plumber may work as hard as a fully qualified teacher plumber, the teacher has the skills and knowledge and expertise and thus deserves more pay. I argued basically saying Anarchist society is post-scarcity because everythings more evenly distributed now anyway but does anyone have good arguments against this one?

[Dr Mindbender]

this is why i am a technocrat. To me, people should have access to jobs and training they want at point of demand rather than being co-erced into crappy menial jobs.

If all the crappy jobs were automated, and there was no social elitism based on the appropriation of labour then there would be no need to punish and reward people with varying quality of life based on their social role.

[Pogue]

bump, i need answers

[Dr Mindbender]

bump, i need answers


If anyone uses this argument at you again use my answer and convert them to technocratic communism.

:)

[Kwisatz Haderach]

Payment is compensation. You get paid for sacrificing something (your time and effort) to produce things that are useful to other people. You should not get paid for things that do not require compensation because they do not involve a sacrifice of your time and effort.

What is "experience?" Age? Well then certainly you shouldn't be paid more just because you're older! What else could "experience" be? The number of years you've been working? Well, you already got paid for all that - surely you're not asking to be paid again for work you did in the past. Are you sacrificing anything in order to gain this "experience," above and beyond the sacrifices of time and effort that other workers are making?

[redguard2009]

The concept of increasing gains and personal profit through continuous work and increased effort and trade skills?

[ernie]

This was used against me in a debate about communism recently, when I proposed that people should be paid according to effort or according to need. The people I argued against said thats unfair because although say an apprentice plumber may work as hard as a fully qualified teacher plumber, the teacher has the skills and knowledge and expertise and thus deserves more pay. I argued basically saying Anarchist society is post-scarcity because everythings more evenly distributed now anyway but does anyone have good arguments against this one?
I thought we communists/anarchists were against the very idea of wages. That is, we don't think that people doing certain types of work deserve to live more comfortably than others. Why should the (material) quality of your life be related to the type of work you do, especially if society has a mechanism to provide a decent life for all of its citizens? My opinion is that it shouldn't. Rewards for dedication and excellence in your field of work should come in the form of prestige, admiration, self-satisfaction, etc.

[Black Sheep]

This was used against me in a debate about communism recently, when I proposed that people should be paid according to effort
And how can you objectively calculate one's effort?

Who puts more effort in his work,a lumberjack or a 1st grade teacher?
A surgeon or a lifeguard?

The problem with the collectivists' model is exactly that,you cannot judge objectively,and you create artificial inequality, unhealthy competition and division amongst the workers.


Rewards for dedication and excellence in your field of work should come in the form of prestige, admiration, self-satisfaction, etc.
Exactly :)

[politics student]

The example is flawed.

The student would earn less than the expert teaching him. The expert would also be paided for educating others and would also produce higher quility of goods.

But saying that I can not see the earning gap between them become huge. The student needs a fair wage to live off and the expert has choosen that career path for what ever reason. (hopefully not for the money)