A number of studies report, that remuneration - in addition to being a
carrier of exchange value - has also signaling component, perceived by
workers as a measure of their competence, social rank, or appreciation
from society. Empirical and experimental evidence also suggests, that
the signaling function is more reliable predictor of the workers’
economic performance, than its exchange value. The first claim of the
presented paper is that decoupling the two functions into separate
rewards can address certain problems associated with the existing
remuneration mechanism, in particular distribution of exchange value,
leading to income inequality. In the second claim, the common assumption
concerning profit ownership is challenged, by pointing out that profit
is not the result of a worker’s effort and therefore its exchange value
should be shared in accordance with Rawls’s 2nd principle of justice. At
the same time the motivationally salient signaling component of profit
is not to be distributed, as it is measure of the rewarded worker’s
intrinsic abilities. In the second part of the paper, framework of
economic system is proposed, based on these ideas.
Keywords: merit economy, self-determination theory, income inequality,
distributive justice, neo
”..Now it is true that the needs of human beings may seem to be
insatiable. But they fall into two classes – those needs which are
absolute in the sense that we feel them whatever the situation of our
fellow human beings may be, and those which are relative in the sense
that we feel them only if their satisfaction lifts us above, makes us
feel superior to, our fellows. Needs of the second class, those which
satisfy the desire for superiority, may indeed be insatiable; for the
higher the general level, the higher still are they. But this is not so
true of the absolute needs - a point may soon be reached, much sooner
perhaps than we are all of us aware of, when these needs are satisfied
in the sense that we prefer to devote our further energies to
non-economic purposes…”