The theory I'm believing more and more (and it accounts for the million-dollar athlete salaries) is personal impact.
If you are a high school teacher, even if you are very good, you can probably have a direct impact on only about fifty students a year.
If you are a coder for a company, you should get paid based on your impact on products that your company sells. This might be why startups can be more lucrative - less employees, more ownership, more revenue per employee.
Wheras, if you are a Major League baseball player, you have a indirect impact on your team's box office revenue (direct if you are top tier like A-Rod), thousands of impressionable kids, thousands of aspiring ball players who are no longer kids, etc. The standard rule for endorsement contracts is 3x - as in the company expects to bring in 3x whatever they are paying their endorser.
Makes me wonder if a true monetizable distance learning solution would allow for teachers to be paid more based on their audience and impact. But teaching via distance technology is still an imperfect medium.
As a counter-point to your wealth = personal impact point: Gandhi, Jesus, Buddha, Mother Teresa, Dali Lama. Whether or not these people and their actions were completely real or did all the things people say they did, they've certainly had an impact on history. None of them were/are particularly rich. Was it a failure to capture that value? Can all value be captured in dollars? Should it?
I did not say that personal impact is equivalent to wealth. It was meant to respond to the parent comment ("some people claimed that the only objective measurement of the value of your work how much you get paid") and to imply that wealth is a result of personal impact, magnified through network effects (having people work for you, television/cable).
Gandhi et al. have had an impact that defies quantification (e.g. world changing)
I personally believe personal impact is answered by this koan:
An interesting question. It could be be that. Could also just be an example of what could happen in a country with a highly educated populace and highly-available broadband internet. If you have a choice of not just a few, but all teachers, why not pick "the best?" Certainly the best will be different for different people, but you can see how a few teachers could easily rise to the top. Night school might only be significant in that where to attend is completely up to the individual.
If you are a high school teacher, even if you are very good, you can probably have a direct impact on only about fifty students a year.
If you are a coder for a company, you should get paid based on your impact on products that your company sells. This might be why startups can be more lucrative - less employees, more ownership, more revenue per employee.
Wheras, if you are a Major League baseball player, you have a indirect impact on your team's box office revenue (direct if you are top tier like A-Rod), thousands of impressionable kids, thousands of aspiring ball players who are no longer kids, etc. The standard rule for endorsement contracts is 3x - as in the company expects to bring in 3x whatever they are paying their endorser.
Makes me wonder if a true monetizable distance learning solution would allow for teachers to be paid more based on their audience and impact. But teaching via distance technology is still an imperfect medium.