Some jobs are harder than others, with the definition of "hard" varying from job to job (ie, physically, mentally, or emotionally draining, dangerous, or requiring a rare skill). Harder jobs should be paid more, otherwise, what incentive is there to take on hard jobs?
The "mass death" thing the other commenter brought up is just plain silly, IMO. Communism failed (and will always fail) due to corruption and greed, and in the past has always been implemented by malicious dictators.
The hierarchical pay structure makes some sense because the higher you go, the more risk you bring to the company. A low-level manager may make a bad hiring choice that costs the company tens of thousands in wasted wages after hiring someone unproductive. Middle management may mismanage their teams and create working environments that lower morale. Upper management and CEOs may make bad decisions on what new products to green light and can cost the company millions or tank it completely.
So, it makes sense IMO to pay the higher ups more, but there should be a profit sharing scheme of some sort to reward people of all levels for their contribution to the success of the company.
I don’t think we do a good job of paying well for hard jobs at all so I don’t really see the idea that people won’t do them if we don’t pay well as being very well supported.
Further I can definitely see the argument that having more responsibility could be incentivised with higher pay if the risk to the individual actually increased. But I also see no compelling evidence that is actually the case. But usually in structures with flatter pay like coops individuals have more say anyway.
Corruption and greed also seem like good explanations for the status quo TBH.
The "mass death" thing the other commenter brought up is just plain silly, IMO. Communism failed (and will always fail) due to corruption and greed, and in the past has always been implemented by malicious dictators.
The hierarchical pay structure makes some sense because the higher you go, the more risk you bring to the company. A low-level manager may make a bad hiring choice that costs the company tens of thousands in wasted wages after hiring someone unproductive. Middle management may mismanage their teams and create working environments that lower morale. Upper management and CEOs may make bad decisions on what new products to green light and can cost the company millions or tank it completely.
So, it makes sense IMO to pay the higher ups more, but there should be a profit sharing scheme of some sort to reward people of all levels for their contribution to the success of the company.