Sure, but there’s an important economic subtlety here: to the extent that work is goal-aligned, it doesn’t need to be paid. You could do it independently, or as partners, or something. Whereas every hour worked doing the employer’s bidding, and every dollar paid for it, must be due to goals that aren’t aligned or are differently weighted (for example, because the worker cares comparatively more about feeding their family). So it makes more sense to me to view every employment relationship, to the extent it exists, as transactional: the employer wants one thing, the worker another, and they exchange labor for money. I think it’s a simpler and more grounded way to think about work, at least when you’re a worker.
So it makes more sense to me to view every employment relationship, to the extent it exists, as transactional: the employer wants one thing, the worker another, and they exchange labor for money.
I mean, this is certainly not the relationship I have with my employer.
Here is an alternative approach you could use which would get you closer to this:
(Non-profit and values ~aligned) employeers pay competitive wages or (ideally) pay in impact equity.
Employees adopt the norm of maximizing (expected) profit. They can donate this to a charity of interest. (Including donating it back to the charity they work at, but this isn’t an expectation.)
This seems like a good approach naively, but unfortunately, I think there are a number of inefficiencies with wages and impact assessment that imply the costs here aren’t worth the benefits in clarity.
Sure, but there’s an important economic subtlety here: to the extent that work is goal-aligned, it doesn’t need to be paid. You could do it independently, or as partners, or something. Whereas every hour worked doing the employer’s bidding, and every dollar paid for it, must be due to goals that aren’t aligned or are differently weighted (for example, because the worker cares comparatively more about feeding their family). So it makes more sense to me to view every employment relationship, to the extent it exists, as transactional: the employer wants one thing, the worker another, and they exchange labor for money. I think it’s a simpler and more grounded way to think about work, at least when you’re a worker.
I mean, this is certainly not the relationship I have with my employer.
Here is an alternative approach you could use which would get you closer to this:
(Non-profit and values ~aligned) employeers pay competitive wages or (ideally) pay in impact equity.
Employees adopt the norm of maximizing (expected) profit. They can donate this to a charity of interest. (Including donating it back to the charity they work at, but this isn’t an expectation.)
This seems like a good approach naively, but unfortunately, I think there are a number of inefficiencies with wages and impact assessment that imply the costs here aren’t worth the benefits in clarity.