The perils of high pay in public service

Apparently it’s possible to pay those public servants too much:

Simply put, if the United States pays the salaries of the Afghan Army, then there is little benefit from the Afghans collectively organizing to encourage people to join the army and fight for their country. In practice, if the salary is sufficiently high relative to the outside option, people might join but will not fight when it is time to deliver. Indeed, General Wesley Clark, former NATO supreme allied commander, gives the following description of the motivation of Afghan soldiers: "People signed up with the Afghan military to make money...but they did not sign up to fight to the death, for the most part." Contrast this with J.R.R. Tolkien's description of Britain at the start of World War I: "In those days chaps joined up, or were scorned publicly." We think it is reasonable to assume that such peer pressure to defend the country did not exist in Afghanistan.

This implies that the solution for any British Chancellor is to cut public sector pay. In that way only those who truly wished to be there, only those really motivated by the ethos of public service, would be doing the varied jobs.

There’s also another interesting implication to this. Those unions which continually argue for higher pay for public servants - that’s an admission that it is the pay, not the public service, which motivates. That is, that their members are not in fact motivated by that public service idea.

Yes, yes, there are limits to how far this terribly fun idea can be taken. But perhaps we could at least acknowledge that no one can be both a selfless Angel*, doing it for the honour or the service, and also requiring a very much higher pay packet to motivate.

Erratum slip. For “Angel” read “MP” as appropriate.