[npunt]

Definitely there's a massive misalignment of what has value in markets and what has value in society, because only some roles and industries are positioned to capture the value they create. Many roles, especially those very human roles of caregivers, teachers, etc, tend to be undervalued because their particular effects are either long term or simply unquantifiable.

I'm not sure what system or frameworks we need in politics to better align these, perhaps your ideas are a rough sketch for them.

I'd like to push back on one point you mentioned: that if an individual refuses to take a job, someone will take their place.

We know in startups and in any organization in general that talent is a key ingredient in success, we talk about it all the time and in many high leverage positions we're looking to get the best of the best, because we know how much of a multiplier effect they have on product, culture, etc. Yet this idea persists that to not participate with your talent means someone else - presumably with equal talent - will take the role instead. This contradicts what we know about hiring for positions that are very talent-driven.

An alternative take is that if talented people refuse to take a position, the available people remaining will be less talented and less able to execute the (negative to society) plan. If the firm hiring them has high standards, then the position may remain unfilled for a long time (another net positive for society). Market forces may increase the salary of that job, but that doesn't mean it will be filled by really talented folks, because if you know talented folks, they typically have their pick of what type of work they want to do and do not pursue solely the highest paying jobs.

[ace_of_spades]

Thanks for your comment! I didn’t notice the answer so my reply is unfortunately pretty late.

I agree with your last point, there is definetly a marginal value that is “lost” if highly talented people refuse a job. However, a general question is how large this effect is going to be. If we are talking about an “evil” company it might be pretty high because not too many people are interested in working there. If we talk about a company like Apple it’s probably pretty low... So, I agree that there is an individual lever that people can use. People leaving/deinstalling fb in masses is a great example of that.

Still, I think the collective component shouldn’t be neglected as this is the only thing which can solve this problem for good (i.e., everything else will be too slow and inefficient)