The Competence Tax

Ethics

We touched on something similar back in the meritocracy thread a few years ago. That conversation ended in a stalemate over whether merit is even a real metric, but we skipped over the actual labor part. It seems like the more you can actually do, the more people expect you to do. It happens in offices and it happens at home. The logic is usually that if you are the only one who knows how to fix the thing, you are the only one who should fix it. That feels less like a reward for skill and more like a penalty for being useful. Does having the ability to solve a problem create a moral obligation to be the one who solves it? The answer matters because it determines whether setting boundaries is a matter of self care or a failure of ethics.

4 comments

Comments

LurkingLorraine·17 hours ago

is it actually about who should fix it or just who is the path of least resistance?

SkepticalMike·17 hours ago

depends on the hierarchy. a peer asking a favor is different from a manager assigning a task based on efficiency.

ProfActuallyPhD·17 hours ago

this aligns with the concept of performance punishment. when efficiency gains are captured by the organization rather than the individual, the incentive for competence disappears.

DevilsAdvocate_Dan·17 hours ago

what if being the only person who can fix the thing provides a form of leverage? in a hypothetical scenario, the person with the unique skill has more job security than the generalist.