Universal salry - could it ever work?

[manicinsomniac]

This occurred to me as I was reading another thread but I didn't want to derail.

Do you think we could ever live in a society that paid adults for the hours of work they do, not the type of work? So people would be paid by the hour, regardless of what job they were doing, rather than having an annual salary.

For example, people in the UK are to earn £15 per hour. So someone who cleans for 3 hours earns £45 but someone who cleans for 10 hours earns £150 and a doctor who does a 15 hour shift earn £225 while a lawyer who works 6 hours earns £90. People log their hours every day and get paid their sum total of working hours at the end of the week or month.

The incentive to work hard is still there because the more you work the more you get. You would still have people in a full range of jobs because people have different skills, interests, circumstances and degrees of intelligence.

I suppose the issue is - do people ever choose a job based on the money it pays alone and are there any jobs that nobody would do if they weren't as highly paid as they are? I work in a middle salary job (teacher) and didn't consider money when I was deciding what I want to do. I imagine most people choose on what they want or are able to do and are either pleased or resigned about the salary?

Obviously you couldn't do this to current adults. It would have to be phased in for people entering employment for the first time.

Is it crazy? It is, isn't it? There's some huge flaw I'm failing to see.

No, you missed my point. Say I'm a cleaner who works for somebody, a cleaning company. Does this company no longer do domestic cleaning? Where do all our contracts come from? No cleaning jobs means no cleaners. What job would I get? A shop job? In competition with every other person who can't be a cleaner? Or would I be forced into education? What if I can't manage the education? Maybe I'm thick? What job do thickies like me get now you've taken away my cleaning job?

And where is the incentive to actually bother working? We all earn the same so there's no aspiration. No nice rewards for doing a harder job. Whats the point?

My assumption was that it was far more common to work for work rather than work for money

Who on earth do you know that works 'for work' rather than because they need money to pay for housing, food, clothing etc? Seriously??

There are a very select few who are a minority who don't have to work at all, or could work in a much less well paid job because they have family money or similar. But those people are few and far between.

Also, if you don't at least check out salaries before embarking on a career you are a bit of a fool. Making uninformed major life choices is very naive.

I don't mind my job. I can't think of another job with similar pay that I would rather do. I like my pay and want more. I wouldn't want to have a reduction in lifestyle at the moment for a corps pounding reduction in stress. But I certainly wouldn't push for promotion if I was going to get paid the same as I'm currently on!

That is all.

op there are coopratives in some places - where worker and boss don't have a differential of earning more than say 25%, this system means there is something to work for but not a hugh difference in the gap between the lowest paid worker and the highest paid worker - and of course of the top gets a pay rise then those at the bottom also see an increase in earning.

HoneyDragon - I'm really sorry. I just didn't know a milkman was a well paid job. I've never met one!

Presumably, there are some jobs that simply aren't worth it to employers to pay over a specific level? It will be balanced against revenue. If employing you costs more than the revenue you generate (or help others to generate collectively), you'll soon be out on your arse.

I asked my dad this exact same question once. I was 7. I genuinely couldn't see the downside. He spluttered something about having tried it in China and it didn't work, then gave all the sorts of examples above. I remember still not getting quite why it wouldn't work.

Now I am not 7, and I can see that it was a fucking idiotic idea. 7 year olds are stupid.

Also - abbie is right, this is not communism. This idea became famous because of George Bernard Shaw's book. It's an idea much much closer to capitalism really - which basically misunderstands human motivations (ie, not always greed) and dehumanises workers, reducing everything to a monetary value. It is nowhere near the philosophy of Engels, or Lenin, or Marx - who discredited the idea himself.

whois - I didn't mean work for work as in 'would work even if there was no salary'. It's more that - if you have a decent level of education or a skill - you are able to have a career. And careers all pay more than enough to live on. So I personally didn't consider which career would pay more than another, I considered what I wanted to do and what would suit my children.

So what about entrepreneurs? You take a massive risk - use all your assets as collateral but you earn the same as someone who takes no risks?

No, I don't think that will work really.

I like my job. It's interesting and stimulating, but also comes with a fair amount of stress. If I was suddenly going to be paid the same as everyone else, I would jack it in and find the easiest, most stress free job available

Hahahaha!

Watch the international brain drin of those who can earn the top money

But anyway, we've established that the idea wouldn't work due to:
a) disabled people
b) too many people wanting what are currently low wage jobs
c) nobody being able to be self employed
d) people working more slowly (though I still think you might be able to get round that one with monitoring)

Yo really haven't thought this one through have you OP?

its perfectly possible to make society fairer, at least the Op is coming up with ideas. Roundly slagging her off just makes you look like a sneery twat.

How about we all come up with different ideas?

Universal pay is not my original idea. Everyone earns £10-£15k as a healthy adult, work they then choose after that attracts more money.

Arguments against include that it's possible prices rise so your 10-15k doesn't buy much.

bonkers idea

Possible X post

So I get paid the same (after GCEs, A levels, a degree, post graduate exams and CPD for the last 20 years)

as a lazy little shit who bunked school and stacks shelves at the supermarket.

Piss Off back to La La Land.

My assumption was that it was far more common to work for work rather than work for money

How can you think that? Why does anyone work, but primarily to feed and shelter themselves and their loved ones? If you don't need the money, it stops being work and becomes a hobby.

Do you have a high earning DP by any chance?

TalkinPeace talkin sense again!

Apart from anything else, surely this would encourage people to work long hours (presenteeism) - which often means quality of work would suffer as people become tired etc. I for one know that the best work I have produced and the best decisions I have made haven't necessarily been the days I put in the most hours so you would run the risk of losing quality as everyone would be burnt out from working long hours if that is the only way they could get more money.

Talking sense? Stereotypes aren't sense really...

Arsehole Yes I may be coming across as a sneery twat, but that's because the OP's were such a load of unworkable crap

Everyone earns £10-£15k as a healthy adult

JeffsanA, what about the unhealthy ones?

If everyone earns the same, a lot if lower paid service jobs (usually done by women) would disappear for starters.

Instead of paying your cleaner £15 per hour, just work one hour less yourself.

Childcare and elderly care would be unaffordable - no childminders (self employed) nannies would be impossible, nurseries even more expensive than at the moment.

How would education/ health care be paid for? Tax revenues would significantly decrease, house prices would plummet as there would a clear cap of affordability which everyone could reach - unless you're not planning to ban inheritances?

If other countries didn't do this- how would you stop people who were money orientated from leaving?

Utterly bonkers.