Until today, I tried to think about my productivity as an advantage.
Could you please clarify what you mean by this?
In the end, it is the social value of your role what you get paid for, not your real productivity. Maybe not so much back in time, but as time passes and more efficiency is introduced in the economy by means of automation the less important is real productivity for your income.
it is the social value of your role what you get paid for
Lol. Your pay is dependant on how much value your bosses/company thinks can be extracted from your labor.
There are plenty of jobs that have social value (i.e. Teachers, Fire Fighters, etc) that don’t get paid high wages.
In the framework of the Baumol effect, a teacher is not as productive as a farmer but he may earn more. I’m talking about productivity against value.
Social value and value are not the same thing. Comparing teaching to farming makes zero sense and I think you might be misunderstanding the Baumol effect. It’s talking about wages raising irrespective of productivity changes in the position because they are competing against other jobs with higher wages, as in competing for the worker.
It has nothing to do with social value, and social value has little to do with wages, unfortunately.
why would you raise wages? why would you compete when the gap is big?
Because workers dont pick the low-paid shitty job when there is jobs they can do just as easily that pay higher.
Why work with low pay in retail when you can work in a plant on a production robot after a few days of training? The plant job most likely pays more, because the productivity is higher due to automation.
Retail can’t become more productive because you can’t automate it, yet you have to raise wages to make workers consider retail.
I work the way I do for me. As someone who is hyper focused on my job, I understand what you’re getting at. Before my recent promotion, I was doing way more work than my coworkers for the same pay because I was work obsessed. But it was what I wanted to do. I am excellent at a job that is genuinely important.
At this point I have wholeheartedly embraced it. I’ve been even more focused since my promotion. I will be the convenience store woman, but for my dispensary. It makes me happy.
I’m right there with you. A large portion of my compensation is the work itself, as I already make more than I can reasonably spend.
I’m seeing it all as an identity thing. You get paid for taking a role which aligns your personal identity with the identity of the collective, regardless of real productivity. I’m sprinkling some Bourdieu into Baumol in seen power structures reproducing themselves by adjusting prices.
The worrying thing to me is when you think you are gonna get promoted for producing more instead of for having a matching personality trait for your next role.
I’m confused how this relates?
What are you going through, OP?