Your anecdote and argument seems to assume that the compensation for each employee needs to be directly tied to some measure of how much "value" they contribute, presumably where that means "business value". Ergo, the rationale goes, since not everyone is contributing "the same value", they should be compensated differently, and so we need a way to measure this "value" that employees are delivering -- hence performance evaluations.
I think it is interesting to explore this assumption, though. In fact, I find this a very American worldview, and it does not hold necessarily true in other countries, even Western European cultures.
I believe this is in part what Phil was pointing at in his original comment -- that these assumptions go largely unexamined, and we could stand to look for a "more enlightened view", as he calls it.
That's an interesting analysis of the core point. I'll need to think about that a bit more.
My immediate reaction is to refer back to your comment of 'well that's capitalism'. If we reach a Star Trek level of post-scarcity then the very idea of compensation becomes laughable. Until then it's the best form of appreciation a corporation has to offer.
I don't think that this is a binary-thing though. There are some places that have a more hybrid model, where some of the compensation is shared unequally, according to what the organization perceives is the relative performance of individuals, and the rest is shared more equally. Because the fact is that a group is more than a sum of its parts.
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Your anecdote and argument seems to assume that the compensation for each employee needs to be directly tied to some measure of how much "value" they contribute, presumably where that means "business value". Ergo, the rationale goes, since not everyone is contributing "the same value", they should be compensated differently, and so we need a way to measure this "value" that employees are delivering -- hence performance evaluations.
I think it is interesting to explore this assumption, though. In fact, I find this a very American worldview, and it does not hold necessarily true in other countries, even Western European cultures.
I believe this is in part what Phil was pointing at in his original comment -- that these assumptions go largely unexamined, and we could stand to look for a "more enlightened view", as he calls it.
That's an interesting analysis of the core point. I'll need to think about that a bit more.
My immediate reaction is to refer back to your comment of 'well that's capitalism'. If we reach a Star Trek level of post-scarcity then the very idea of compensation becomes laughable. Until then it's the best form of appreciation a corporation has to offer.
I don't think that this is a binary-thing though. There are some places that have a more hybrid model, where some of the compensation is shared unequally, according to what the organization perceives is the relative performance of individuals, and the rest is shared more equally. Because the fact is that a group is more than a sum of its parts.