"Real Artists Ship"

Colin Johnson’s blog


Motivations for Work

An odd contradiction on the economic right of politics:

  • There is objection to ideas such as basic income, unemployment benefits, etc. on the grounds that once people have basic needs catered for, their motivation to carry out additional economic activity for the marginal benefits it provides are minimal. A person who has basic housing costs paid for and a few hundred quid per month living expenses is assumed to be unmotivated to work further.
  • There is objection to ideas of increasing tax take at the higher end, on the grounds that it will reduce motivation to work. Even though someone might be earning £100k or more, the idea is that they will be significantly demotivated if they have to pay another few hundred quid per year in taxes.

This seem contradictory. Either people are willing to work harder for more money, or there is a level where the marginal monetary benefit will not produce additional motivation. If anything, you might expect it to be the other way round—the marginal benefit to the person in desperate economic circumstances of a small amount additional income gives a larger lifestyle change than for the person on a large income. I suspect that at the heart of the contradiction is a belief that there are two sorts of people—the lazy, who wouldn’t care, and the motivated, who will always be willing to do more for a larger benefit. I think motivation is more complex than that.

Leave a Reply