Should you have to pay two people the same amount of money for the same work?

[opebo]

People down at the bottom of the economic heirarchy - say the bottom 60 or 80% of the population - do get paid similarly for work, as they're paid by the hour.  Of course the two exceptions to that are women, who are paid less, and blacks, who are normally not hired at all.

Now at the upper end of the economic heirarchy, people are paid more for things like - who their father is, what school they went to, and many other class signifiers.  Golfing ability is as important as 'efficiency'.  Women and blacks are present in this world only in the most token numbers.

Of course all of these levels and their various pay gradations are irrelevant to the true economic divide - between worker and owner.  The distinctions maintained between upper-middle and lower-to-middle classes, as well as between male and female, and black and white, have little to do with performance or productivity, and everything to do with maintaining the heirarchy.  And the purpose of the heirarchy is to benefit and secure those at the very top - the owners.

[??????????]

People down at the bottom of the economic heirarchy - say the bottom 60 or 80% of the population - do get paid similarly for work, as they're paid by the hour.  Of course the two exceptions to that are women, who are paid less, and blacks, who are normally not hired at all.

The department in which I work is almost 60% black and in the south OMG! But we don't hire any blacks at all.

[Jake]

Thanks for the laugh opebo

[Citizen James]

In theory, if they do the same quality work.  Unfortunately, the means of attempting to measure quality are often fatally flawed.  (I once worked for a national tow-truck dispatch center.  Their judgement of success was how fast you finished a call.  This often ended up costing a lot of money as hasty misspellings often had trucks sent out to the wrong city, and irate customers who were upset over slow service.  I quietly mentioned my concerns to my boss, who gave me the boot for my input.   They went belly up a year later, so I guess I had the last laugh.)

My experience in more professional realms has been that the people who work the hardest and longest tend to get paid the least.   The ones who spend their time  'networking' and boasting about how impressive they are are the ones who tend to get most of the raises and promotions.   When it comes to corporate rewards, it's usually perception and knowing how to game the system that gets you ahead, not hard work and sacrifice.

[opebo]

People down at the bottom of the economic heirarchy - say the bottom 60 or 80% of the population - do get paid similarly for work, as they're paid by the hour.  Of course the two exceptions to that are women, who are paid less, and blacks, who are normally not hired at all.

The department in which I work is almost 60% black and in the south OMG! But we don't hire any blacks at all.

Probably much cheaper and more beaten down.

[Ebowed]

People down at the bottom of the economic heirarchy - say the bottom 60 or 80% of the population - do get paid similarly for work, as they're paid by the hour.  Of course the two exceptions to that are women, who are paid less, and blacks, who are normally not hired at all.

The department in which I work is almost 60% black and in the south OMG! But we don't hire any blacks at all.

Probably much cheaper and more beaten down.

No reasonable place would make blacks work for cheaper and make them "more beaten down."

[??????????]

People down at the bottom of the economic heirarchy - say the bottom 60 or 80% of the population - do get paid similarly for work, as they're paid by the hour.  Of course the two exceptions to that are women, who are paid less, and blacks, who are normally not hired at all.

The department in which I work is almost 60% black and in the south OMG! But we don't hire any blacks at all.

Probably much cheaper and more beaten down.

Everyone there gets paid equally for the job they do.

[opebo]

People down at the bottom of the economic heirarchy - say the bottom 60 or 80% of the population - do get paid similarly for work, as they're paid by the hour.  Of course the two exceptions to that are women, who are paid less, and blacks, who are normally not hired at all.

The department in which I work is almost 60% black and in the south OMG! But we don't hire any blacks at all.

Probably much cheaper and more beaten down.

Everyone there gets paid equally for the job they do.

Only because of legal requirements or fear of a lawsuit. 

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Only because of legal requirements or fear of a lawsuit. 

And? Clearly the system works

[angus]

Hell no.

it's a good question.  I feel like a bit of a hypocrit, as I have used this argument in the past, successfully, to justify requests for salary increase to the level of more senior employees of the same rank.  But, no, I do not think any one should be required to pay any one else anything.  An employment contract is between the employer and the employed.  No one else's business.

[Hitchabrut]

Depends how well they do it.

Exactly.  People should be paid on overall productivity.  Just because two people are doing the same job doesn't mean they're equally productive.

[opebo]

Only because of legal requirements or fear of a lawsuit. 

And? Clearly the system works

Yes, but the point is it is a system created by the liberal Democrats of the past.  The GOP wants to do away with it.

[Beet]

No...pay em according their marginal product.

If their work is the same then their marginal product is the same as well since you don't "know" which one is the "last worker"... and it's impossible to know since each worker contributes exactly the marginal product of the last worker hired, assuming they do the same work.

Not necessarily.

Assuming the amount of capital remains the same, and I don't hire two workers at the same time, then the worker hired later will (in all probability) have a lower marginal product.

Now you'll say, both workers could be equally productive, and worker B (the one hired later) could be as productive as A if hired first.

And I'll agree fully...but then theres the whole seniority argument that could be brought into play...plus the fact that as a business owner, I'm not concerned so much with paying people the same...as long as they're willing to work for what I will pay, then I'm in the business of making a profit...not paying people equally.

Wrong. I don't think you really know what marginal product is. Marginal product is a specific economic term that you're not using correctly, and its correct use invalidates your point. Remember, we're assuming that both workers do the same work.

Consider I hire person A, with a marginal product of $5,000; then I hire person B to do the same work, but he has a marginal product of $3,000. If B does the same work as A, why is B's marginal product lower than A's? The answer is that it is not. If we assume they are doing the same work, there is no way to distinguish the value of A's work vs. B's work because there is no way to distinguish A's work vs. B's work period. The minute I hired person B, person A's marginal product falls to $3,000.

It is the similiar concept as marginal utility. Suppose you are hungry, and given a set of 10 oranges. The first orange will have a high value to you, the second less, the third less, etc. At one point you will be full and no longer want any oranges. Another orange at that point has no marginal product, maybe even negative. But it doesn't matter which orange is eaten first or later. With employers, they are simultaneously consuming all the workers, and it doesn't matter which was hired first. All that matters is the marginal product per worker based on aggregate labor force.