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Comment by EntrePrescott | Hacker News Reader

> The job market is not our god

Thank the FSM it isn't. But then again, a god is not what determines the price of any given type of work. That would be not a god but… salary negotiations (at the individual level) and more generally the job market (in the larger statistical view)

> Life is not some kind of economic art project.

Neither are salaries. Nothing artsy about them. Instead, they are simply determined by the level at which two sides find together in agreement to the exchange of work against money for a price they mutually agree upon. "Job Market" is just the word for the statistical view across all individual such transactions.

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> If they can't find better paying job, then that is exactly how much they worth on the job market.

Given that Google et al were found to be colluding to limit job mobility and wages in the tech industry, this is a bit of a rich take.

What people are worth and what they can get paid are not synonymous.

First of all, that line you quote isn't from me.

Then: Ugly as that Google thing was, its intent and effect was to prevent competition ("poaching") by a handful of big competitors. Ugly, sure, but that only represented a small fraction of the tech industry. Equating these "Google et al" of that context with the job market of the tech industry is just absurd. That being said, de-facto-cartel behavior like that on the employer side or like unions on the employee side do make the job market somewhat less of a free market.

> What people are worth and what they can get paid are not synonymous.

Aside from the fact that - again - there was no mention of "worth" in my comment, that sounds like you being triggered at the colloquial shortened use of "someone's worth" for what a person can get paid on the job market, because you conflate that by equivocation with some philosophical, emotional or moral notion of personal "worth" (all of which are subjective btw) and feel indignation at the projected idea that those two totally different things would be equal for some people. Well guess what: they aren't. The job market is not at all about what people are "worth" in those senses but only about what "market worth" not they as persons but their work time has, i.e. for what value they can expect to find someone else who will be consenting to give their money in exchange for that work time.

I avoid the term "worth" for precisely that reason: that it tends to trigger by equivocation and thus sidetrack from the rational economic background of the link between individual salaries and the job market, when in reality nobody is arguing that the "market worth" of the work someone is selling would be equal to the (philosophical, societal, or whatever other, let alone financial) "worth" of that person themself. While the former is sometimes colloquially shortened to "someone's market worth", the job market is not about the "worth" of people but about the level at which, statistically, they sell their work time i.e. at which they find someone who consents to pay that much for it.

I know that quote is not yours, but it is the claim we are discussing and that you are defending.

> I avoid the term "worth" for precisely that reason: that it tends to trigger by equivocation and thus sidetrack

You're the only one engaged in side tracking.

> that sounds like you being triggered at the colloquial use of "worth" for what a person can get paid on the job market, because you conflate that by equivocation with some philosophical, emotional or moral notion of personal "worth"

Nope.

> The job market is not at all about what people are "worth" in those senses but only about what "market worth" not they as persons but their work time has, i.e. for what value they can expect to find someone else who will be consenting to give their money in exchange for that work time.

Yep.

Except, markets are never perfect. It is not unusual that individuals who can produce a lot of value for companies can struggle to find employment that provides commensurate pay. The reasons for this are diverse. One example is the explicite collusion that Google engaged in. Other examples are Cargo cult disfunctional hiring practices, ageism, racism, sexism, elitism, nepotism, ...etc the list goes on and on.

My whole point is that "What people are worth and what they can get paid are not synonymous".

Edit: In this specific case, a major factor is the bargaining issues that arise with "joint employment". The associated ruling allows workers to bargain more directly with the entity for whom they are producing value.

You project some personal conception of "worth" of x as if it was some normative and objective value inherent by essence to each category x would belong to. It's not.

For whatever x, your estimation of the "worth" of x may differ from mine or that of any third person. The estimation of what x (be it a product, a service, or work time for a job) is worth to someone is inherently totally subjective to the eye of the beholder (be they seller or buyer, e.g. employee or employer… or external observer) and situation: The price that you'd be willing to pay out of your pocket for someone else's development work is likely much lower to the price you would ask for you doing the same work.

You're free to set your personal subjective estimation of what your work time is worth at, say, a gazillion dollars p.a. For whatever reasons, justified or not to others. Doesn't change the fact that it may or may not not be subjectively "worth" that much to people who are in principle interested in buying that work (though not necessarily at that price). For whatever reasons of their own.

There is no such thing as an inherent objective "worth", only subjective "worth" in the eye of each subjective beholder. All of that is totally subjective.

Objectivity of "worth" only exists in the purely observative statistical sense: In particular, "market worth" is simply the term for the value at which statistically two sides (each with their own subjective "worth" estimation) mutually consenting to the transaction find together.

> In particular, "market worth" is simply the term for the value at which statistically two sides (each with their own subjective "worth" estimation) mutually consenting to the transaction find together.

This is an idealistic and simplistic understanding of how markets work. Information asymmetry, power asymmetry and other structural issues (not to mention deliberate malfeasance) can lead to two employees who could produce equivalent value to a company, receiving very different offers or salaries.

Contracting companies often serve a role in creating a structure that limits the negotiating power of employees. You argue for "mutually consenting" agreements on estimating value while ignoring that fact in this particular case a middleman has been put between the two parties to limit any potential mutual negotiation.

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