[sokoloff]

Motivation is a complex topic to be sure. An argument that has always resonated with me (and I bring up mostly to see if we can find a good rebuttal here) is that if I’m paying someone wildly more than their second-best alternative, they are in part motivated (to keep the gravy train rolling) and in part trapped (“I better learn to deal with this, because I can’t go anywhere else without massive sacrifice for my family”).

The latter can lead to “I’ll quit mentally but not actually” which is horrible for all parties. (I’m not saying that’s an excuse to underpay people “for their own good”, but I think anchoring pay to an employee’s actual market makes some non-zero amount of sense.)

[lotsofpulp]

> An argument that has always resonated with me (and I bring up mostly to see if we can find a good rebuttal here) is that if I’m paying someone wildly more than their second-best alternative, they are in part motivated (to keep the gravy train rolling) and in part trapped (“I better learn to deal with this, because I can’t go anywhere else without massive sacrifice for my family”).

The rebuttal to this argument is that if you’re selling a commodity product, then you’re going to get steamrolled when Walmart/Amazon/Aliexpress/Multinational company comes rolling through and offers a comparable option to your product at 50% less by arbitraging labor costs.

[sokoloff]

I agree with that observation. I don’t understand how that rebuts the presumption that I should pay market wages to avoid trapping overpaid employees in jobs they don’t find fulfilling.

[lotsofpulp]

Oh, I thought you meant a rebuttal to your first paragraph, to which I would say you wouldn’t survive as a business.

I don’t know anything about trapping people in a job they don’t like with a high wage.

[ghaff]

It probably depends on what their intrinsic motivation related to the job is. Do they find it fun, mentally challenging (in a good way), etc,? If they're motivated in that way, the extrinsic motivation of above-market pay is probably a good thing. But if that's their only motivation and they'd rather be anywhere else if it weren't for the money, that's a negative.

[sokoloff]

100% agreed. My hypothesis (previously unstated) is that some slice of people who start out in the first bucket inevitably turn into the second bucket. (They get bored of "doing the same old thing" or they "just want a change".)