[yomly]

10/10 times I would rather scientists conducting nebulous research than crunching spreadsheets for a bank.

The point is you have a pool of people who are talented and can do things that other people can't, they're contributing more to society than most and they're expected to do this for free.

[sseagull]

I've always thought of it as the economy will always take advantage of people who enjoy doing something like this. Ie, If you love science, you may be willing to take a lower wage. Eventually, it becomes very exploitative, with long hours and lower wages "just because" it's something you enjoy (even though it is quite beneficial to society).

I wonder if there is a term/concept for this in economics or sociology. I've been looking to nail down the idea a bit.

[projektir]

That doesn't make sense. Science can have huge contributions, and any decent capitalistic system must reward that. If you have people working for poor wages while doing important things, it means the wrong group of people got too much power.

[throw_away_777]

People get paid for work they do that generates profit for the people paying them to do the work. Science, by its very nature, benefits society as a whole as opposed to the people who pay for the science. Patents are designed to correct this somewhat, but often aren't really enforceable. Most companies also don't have the lifetime to benefit from long-term moon-shot projects. When companies do promote science, they usually have a monopoly (for example Bell Labs).

Also, the supply-side of the equation is very important. There are plenty of people willing to be graduate students and post-docs for low pay, so they won't get paid much even if the work they do is important. This is made worse by the huge number of foreign workers who are willing to work for peanuts as postdocs and graduate students, see: https://psmag.com/the-real-science-gap-f00edae57ba1#.pbo4crt....

[bobsil1]

Also true in gaming salaries. Psychic/compensatory rewards?