Just Wages, Desert, and Pay-What-You-Want Pricing

Authors

  • Teun J. Dekker University College Maastricht, The Netherlands

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.23941/ejpe.v11i2.336

Keywords:

wages, distributive justice, desert, pay-what-you-want pricing

Abstract

Some restaurants allow guests to decide how much they would like to pay for their meals, depending on how much they enjoyed the experience. It is not counterintuitive to think that such a mechanism would set a deserved wage. After all, one might think that how much one deserves depends on how much value one creates for others and that individuals can adequately judge how much value they derive from some good or service. Hence, letting consumers decide what they think certain goods or experiences are worth would result, in the aggregate, in a deserved and just wage. In this paper, I will explore and defend this argument.

Author Biography

Teun J. Dekker, University College Maastricht, The Netherlands

Teun J. Dekker is Professor of Liberal Arts and Sciences Education at University College Maastricht – Maastricht University, where he teaches courses on the intersection of the social sciences and the humanities. His graduate work focused on the elaboration and defense of desert based theories of distributive justice. His current research examines the economic, civic, and personal significance of liberal arts education in Europe.

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Published

2018-09-19

How to Cite

Dekker, T. J. (2018). Just Wages, Desert, and Pay-What-You-Want Pricing. Erasmus Journal for Philosophy and Economics, 11(2), 144–162. https://doi.org/10.23941/ejpe.v11i2.336