Apples and oranges. Lebron James demonstrably, personally, makes squillions in profits for the Cavaliers - records can be produced to evidence this, they can see how much merchandise with his name or image on it is bought and sold as one example.
Your average office or factory worker will give a big boost to company profits if they work well, but have buckleys chance of being able to quantify their personal contribution and demand appropriate rewards.
If ‘who happens to be the lowest bidder’ matters so little, why is such a HUGE proportion of manufacturing for Western companies done in China, Mexico and other countries whose ONLY advantage is that labour and running costs are cheaper there than here?
Not at all true. Lebron James is an extreme case, which is why I used him, to illustrate the point, but he is the rule rather than the exception.
I’ve worked for several large corporations that have entire departments that analyze in the minutest detail the performance of the people who have their bottom rung jobs and pay more to those who do the job most productively.
China and Mexico get so much of the work that use to be based in the US for a multiplicity of reasons. Yes, cheaper labor is part of it, but so is less red tape, freedom from onerous environmental regulations, reduced cost of raw materials, etc, etc.
Also, China and Mexico are free of something that has been the death knell of manufacturing, which is unions.
But more to the point, your whole premise contains a contradiction. You speak to businesses motivation as if they want to pay the least for what it gets, which is, as I’ve said, simplistic and explains why you would never run a business.
Far, far, far more important is return on investment. Business will gladly pay an employee much more than a living wage if that employee generates enough wealth.
So it’s sophomoric and contradictory to say at one and the same time that a business only wants to pay as little as possible AND a business is only out to make money.