If I make five widgets per hour, and you make ten, do I deserve the same hourly wage as you?
What if my five widgets are high quality, well-crafted widgets, and your ten widgets were sloppily slapped together? Should we receive the same hourly wage?
Maybe our wages would be better set on the quality and quantity of widgets that we make, and not the time spent making them?
FWIW, it’s not about what you make, it’s about what makes money. If cheap, crappy widgets make a profit, but well-made expensive widgets don’t, guess who keeps her job?
Here's a counter-argument, union-focused:
What if you make 10 widgets and I make 5 widgets, but the next step in the assembly line is to insert those widgets into a larger machine and that process is timed to perform at 5 widgets per hour? What happens to the extra 5 widgets that you made? What are the costs of removing those widgets from the assembly line and storing them?
Can one over-produce in a way that degrades value once the sweet-spot of supply and demand is passed?
-PJ
Sure, especially if the other guy happens to be using a widget machine that costs as much as another worker.