What would the incentive be for a mean, or even underperforming, worker to look at the pay of a top performer and do anything other than argue for more pay for the same amount of work? The value a worker brings is not a completely tangible assessment, it has vague and qualitative components to it. Whereas, how much that worker is paid is a hard quantitative fact and is not debatable.
If you remove the ability of the manager to obfuscate where an employee's earnings stack up in the absolute rank, or how much additional pay is on the table, then the only thing to argue about is how much value the worker brings. The worker will always be able to claim that they deliver unmeasured value, or that their tangible contributions are not properly valued. Multiply this conversation out across 50% of your work force, and quickly the only rational thing to do, as a manager, is to bring down the top earner's pay to a level that will not generate complaints from the mean worker.
This is the aim of all collectivism frankly, to appease the mean producer at the expense of society ultimately.
If you don't believe this, explain please the chain of reasoning that would lead a lower paid worker to conclude their pay is fair and that they should not try to argue for more money.
"What would the incentive be for a mean, or even underperforming, worker to look at the pay of a top performer and do anything other than argue for more pay for the same amount of work? "
He can argue for more money and management then has to justify why there is a difference. That's not different from some people being promoted (and paid better) faster than others.
Because the top performer most likely doesn't make the most money. They might also have a better negotiating position if other companies are pressured to do the same and reveal they pay better for a similar performance.
All of this is somewhat of a moot argument though as individuals hold very little bargaining power in the general work force. You might have some leverage when applying for a C-level position (but let's be honest, you don't go through a regular hiring process for positions like that) but if you want anything that's a significantly deviation from what the company will happily give you, you'll get nowhere without collective bargaining (and in fact you will more likely just get replaced). Individual workers don't hold much power, even if they're made to feel like celebrity athletes with foosball tables, fruit bowls and free drinks on tap.
Because "a top performer" is not a wholistic judge of what someone is doing, how they got there, the circumstances surrounding that individual, etc.
You're speaking of this hierarchy of "obfuscated" value brought to the table and then comparing it to a somewhat simplistic ( rank 1 is 1x valuable, rank 2 is 2x,...nx valuable) image of compensation. that's not how the real world works. You're abstracting to the spherical cow level of understanding of reality, there isn't "the worker" and "the manager" there are positions and responsibilities, if a manager lost all their workers tomorrow, they would be more out of luck than if a set of workers lost their manager, on balance, the workers have the implicit understanding that they formulate the important core of whatever network they support.
It's really only the social scaffolding we construct that maintains that hiearchy.
You haven't addressed any part of this argument at all.
Managers can and do stack rank their employees, and pay them differentially according to that ranking, I'm sorry if you're learning this just now. If anything, you've validated my point by agreeing that employee value is a holistic assessment -- i.e. it has non-quantitative elements.
That understanding is what makes it possible for someone who produces less value for the company to argue that they actually produce more. Once they understand exactly how much is available to bargain over, the manager has no leverage to push back, and there is no reason not to make the case that one's non-quantitative competences are worth all of that gap. It costs approximately nothing to keep asking for more money.
You're forgetting that there are other employees and other firms in the world. Either class is free to look outside the current relationship if they are unhappy, and this can rely entirely on subjective judgement.
If you see a bunch of people who are paid more than you, you can judge that you'll be able to find another employer who will pay you what you want, but only if you have a reasonable overview of what the salaries are in the system.
Same goes in the boss side, he can decide whether he wants to hit or stick.
If you remove the ability of the manager to obfuscate where an employee's earnings stack up in the absolute rank, or how much additional pay is on the table, then the only thing to argue about is how much value the worker brings. The worker will always be able to claim that they deliver unmeasured value, or that their tangible contributions are not properly valued. Multiply this conversation out across 50% of your work force, and quickly the only rational thing to do, as a manager, is to bring down the top earner's pay to a level that will not generate complaints from the mean worker.
This is the aim of all collectivism frankly, to appease the mean producer at the expense of society ultimately.
If you don't believe this, explain please the chain of reasoning that would lead a lower paid worker to conclude their pay is fair and that they should not try to argue for more money.