It's in the interest of your employer to get the greatest amount of value for the smallest wage. That's not a moral statement about your particular employer, that's just a rational actor model of economics. In turn it's in your interest to expand least labor for the greatest pay. The asymmetry is your employer is an institution that can put incalculable resources into imposing its utility on you, from union busting and productivity spyware to lobbying national policy and conspiring to tilt the labor market... An employer can go months without significant fractions of employees, they can hire an entire hidden backup department in case of a strike, but you'll probably quickly starve without ongoing employment.

> It's in the interest of your employer to get the greatest amount of value for the smallest wage.

No it's not necessarily, because employment is a repeated game with public information.

(Other people can see how much you're paying people by checking levels.fyi/blind/etc.)

There's better ways to motivate people anyway - thus tech companies pay with stock grants and performance bonuses.

And it is in my interest to charge my employer as much as they will pay for my work, regardless of whether or not I would have done it for less. In many cases, I would have, but I still negotiated for more.

There are many problems with modern capitalism and the political economy of the world. If you have ideas about how we can build a better system, I genuinely wish you luck.