In the psychological experiments cited by Kohn that show interest in performing a task declining when people are paid, it makes little difference what tasks are being performed. In the economy, attracting workers into the right jobs is crucial and requires pay differentials that critics like Kohn find objectionable. Economists also recognize that while people generally enjoy their work in total , most jobs are a pain at the margin . Even if you get tremendous satisfaction from your job, the marginal satisfaction can be very low, in fact negative. Well before the work day is over, most of us are tired of the grind and would love to leave work early and do something else.
People put in eight hours of diligent effort because there is a financial inducement to do so.
The value a worker is contributing to consumers by remaining on the job is positive even though the marginal value he receives from working longer has declined to zero and is about to become negative. Since consumers can communicate through additional pay that the value to them is greater than his cost of staying on the job, he continues working. But because their performance is valued so highly by consumers who communicate that value with extremely lucrative compensation, they put in the extra hours. I am not claiming that compensation is always tied directly to worker output. That is not always practical.