You're entitled to your compensation because someone of your skill level is needed to get the job you do done. Yes, others may suffer more but the result is what creates value, and the results of their work are less than that of yours. And if your work required more suffering, it would probably pay more too.

Basically, your compensation is based on the face-value of the results of your work, as well as the difficulty necessary in order to be capable of doing such work. So for other positions that require more work-per-hour, they get less usually because a greater population is capable of that same work. (and so, someone somewhere can be found to do it cheaper)

I think that seems to be missed a lot in discussions of this nature, the value of training and the scale of populations with given skills and how more training generally means less people and therefore less who are desperate and will take a lower than standard wage. (while with unskilled positions, it's automatically a race to the minimum)

Well, that's a direct connection between someone producing value and receiving it, and why we're running the system this way, but that doesn't quite cut it for me as a moral code. For example, if one is entitled to the value they produce (to the extent that that can be properly measured), why would we take care of the disabled, or the elderly?

Because empathy (one day we will be elderly too), and because they did contribute value throughout their lives. In return for that, they earn respect and care. On some level, it is a selfish empathy (if I help this old person, it helps normalize that helping old people is a thing we should do, and then I can cash out on that when old), but maybe all empathy is anyways...its ok if its selfish internally if the result is consistently positive.

> I don't have a good rule for determining how much either of us should be entitled to earn.

I don't have an objectively provable rule, but I do have one that makes a pretty good starting point: if you create something valuable, you should be able to capture most (or even all) of that value.

of course, no one just creates things from scratch. they use tools designed by other people, they use resources extracted from the earth, their productivity might be multiplied if directed by a good team leader, etc. if you take the final product and subtract all the tools, resources, and infrastructure used, you have your personal contribution. I think we should strive for a system where the worker keeps as much of their contribution as possible. some people's contribution will be much larger than others', depending on their skills and the type of work they do, but I don't think this is inherently unfair if you have first accounted for all the external things they have benefited from.

But what about people unable to work? What about the elderly, the disabled, or, as more and more gets automated, those no longer able to provide more value than robots? If our moral code is limited to "you are entitled to the value you create", then those people would be left out - and I think that's inconsistent with the rest of my moral code.