I get out plenty. I did some work today for Habitat for Humanity. Building screens for a back porch. Imagine that, people actually building an entire house without getting paid. I delivered meals on wheels earlier this week. People cooking, cleaning dishes, delivering food, etc. without getting paid. Pet therapy has people training, housing, feeding animals at their own expense for use as therapy for the benefit of other people unrelated to them. Walking Books is another example. The list of such work that gets done daily is quite extensive. To imagine we need unequal remuneration in order to coerce people to work is short sighted. A viewpoint of someone who doesn't get out much perhaps? Before anyone gets the idea that I'm all about blowing my own horn I list the above work as examples because I know of them firsthand. I'm incredibly lucky that in being self-employed I have the ability to do those things. When I worked 45 hours a week at the store I co-owned I was not able to do anywhere near that same level of volunteer work. The work for Habitat for Humanity is also only worthwhile in conjunction with the work of countless others. No one builds a house alone. It is a cooperative effort with bosses that serve only at the pleasure of the other workers. It is a great example of cooperative work that offers no pay differential regardless of effort and supervisory roles being filled by those who are capable but who cannot coerce others. It is extremely fair and egalitarian in its divisions of labor.
I do of course know that under such a plan some people will choose to do nothing but not in sufficient numbers to be a drag on productive work being accomplished. You seem stuck on the idea that if I work my ass off 50 hours a week it it "unfair" that someone who works no hours per week should be paid equally. It isn't unfair if the option to do nothing exists equally for me. Equal opportunity (as far as is possible) is the very essence of fairness. You also say it is exploitation if someone gets paid the same for doing nothing while others work but that it not the definition of exploitation. Without coercion there can be no exploitation and with equal pay irrespective of input there can be no coercion. You don't seem to know what the words coercion and exploitation really mean. You write "It's unfair, and it undermines social solidarity and stability, for some people to get struck doing drudgery or dirty, dangerous work while others do nothing." This suggests you haven't understood what I've proposed. How can you be "stuck" doing any job if you can leave that job at will, anytime, and not suffer any corresponding reduction in income? The answer is, you can't, so the unfairness you keep insisting exists in such a system exists only in your mind. If you want to argue that not enough work will get done that is certainly a point to be considered but there is nothing unfair about, and no way to get 'stuck' doing a job you dislike, if you will be paid exactly the same whether you do the job or not. There is nothing coercive about such a system, there is nothing exploitative about such a system, and there is nothing unfair about such a system. If you cannot see that there is nothing coercive, exploitative, or unfair about such a system then you do not really understand what is being proposed.
Someone will want to mine coal. They will enjoy it if they have the opportunity to stay out of mines they feel are not safe, have unrealistic quotas set by others, have asshole bosses, etc. They may only work 5 hours a day 3 days per week but someone will want to do that job. Someone will want to teach, be a doctor, nurse, dentist, run an electric generating power plant, treat drinking water, etc. There is no job that will go undone unless that job paid more than another job. Do you imagine there will be no roofers if roofers can't be paid more than carpet layers? After all roofing is done outdoors in the sun, wind, cold, hot while carpet layers get to work indoors in climate controlled environments, right? If you believe this then how do houses get built by Habitat for Humanity workers? The existence of Habitat homes helps dispel the idea that pay differentials are necessary to get people to do jobs that are accomplished under different working conditions. We don't have any large scale experiments that show such pay differences can be dismissed but the work of groups like Habitat for Humanity offer us a glimpse as to what may be possible. It does demonstrate that what some people claim is impossible or nearly impossible is not as difficult as they imagine.
There will be people who are not satisfied unless they have more than their neighbor but fuck them and their selfishness. These types of tastes should not be catered to since they are destructive to society. They will also be exceedingly rare in a generation raised to accept the idea that equal pay just for being human is everyones birthright.
The fact is no society has ever existed that has been free of exploitation and coercion in work relationships but such a society really is within our grasp. I'm not foolish enough to imagine it will happen in my lifetime but it is feasible and claiming it is against "human nature" is not a valid argument. I'm surprised to see anyone even try to make such a case. Appeals to "human nature" are generally a sign of grasping for straws. The real hooey is imagining coercive work relationships are an inescapable part of "human nature".
How would you decide what jobs paid more than others? By importance to society? By numbers needed in society? By physical difficulty? By mental difficultly? Imagine an unattractive man of slight build, maybe 5'4", with an IQ of 85. He cannot accomplish as much physical labor as someone with a much larger physique nor can he accomplish the mental tasks of those who are much smarter. This person will always have a very large portion of society making much more money than he ever can. You seem very concerned about fairness but how is such a system fair to this person? How can this person ever be as free to accomplish what they desire as a handsome man who is 6'4" with an IQ of 130? A beautiful woman who is 6'1" with an IQ of 150? They cannot unless all remuneration is equal. Such a persons opportunities will never be equal to those whose endowments, through random chance, are much greater. If, under a system of equal pay after compensation for differential needs, you feel you are not being remunerated sufficiently for your labor you are completely free to reduce your labor until you feel the labor expended is equal to your remuneration. To call that unfair is to have no idea what fairness is. Are you going to try to determine peoples effort expended to determine remuneration? If you believe our hypothetical man of low IQ and slight build is 'trying' to dig coal just as hard as the miner with a large build will he be paid just as much as the larger man even if he only digs 1/3 as much coal? Is that fair to the larger man who dug 3 times as much coal? Won't the larger man resent the unfairness of being paid the same as the slight man who accomplished less? Is it fair to pay the slight man less when his effort is equal to the larger man? How is effort to be determined? Their unequal endowments due to their genetic differences should not be rewarded/punished should they? How is that fair?
I have firsthand working knowledge of how equal pay for unequal work can be implemented. It does cause resentment for people raised with little very understanding of solidarity but people can come to understand the merits of such a system. The fact that they can see the obvious merits in such a system in spite of the fact that every aspect of our society tells them just the opposite should be very encouraging. Unequal remuneration ultimately causes more problems than can be justified if your primary goals are fairness of opportunities for the maximum number of people and elimination of coerciveness in working relationships. I'm not a starry-eyed optimist. Far from it; I'm exceptionally pessimistic. I doubt humankind will reach such a stage in social development before we kill vast numbers of people. Even then, while I hope we make such a transition, my faith in our ability to do so is low. Unfortunately any new society must bring with it some aspects of the old society and therein lies the problem. Some remnants of the old poison must remain.
John Thornton