I feel you are presenting a false dichotomy. If this was true, why are the most boring jobs not paid the best? It seems that capitalist money is just hidden punishment: do something you don't want to do for a pittance, because you have no leverage. In a family, in a community there are also ways to incentivise prosocial behaviour just by culture, which is why e.g. most of German emergency operations are volunteer based. And in most associations, people are if not happy then perfectly willing to do the boring job if that's the way they become a part of the association. Social norms and customs and their establishment are a whole lot more complicated than "punishment from leaders"
> If this was true, why are the most boring jobs not paid the best?
Likely because many of those boring jobs have many more people qualified/capable to do them than there are spots to be filled. Even though we seem to need a lot of people to take goods out of totes and put them into cardboard boxes, there are a lot more people who are able to do that work than spots needed.
Maybe a sense of accomplishment, a feeling that they've done something with their day, some structure, a place to be that isn't their house, something to do besides watch TV all day, some interaction with their co-workers, a bit of exercise?
Do you not feel any sense of accomplishment from mundane things that you do well once they're done? It doesn't have to solely be that they prefer food with their meals.
Because most boring jobs require skills that everyone has. Specialization makes the other jobs have higher salaries, not because they are less boring, but because they can only be done by a smaller amount of people.
I agree that in small situations you can bring social pressure to solve this problem. Sometimes. Some families break up over issues like this.
As you scale up, it gets harder and harder. You get a few people who are intentional free riders. The hard workers see the free riders sitting right next to them stop. Then more and more hard workers defect.
That system of emergency operations is a great counter example. You correctly point out that it's good to have a system with more than just monetary incentives. You have to have a mix of monetary incentives, punishments and other incentives such as just the feeling that you're helping out, or perhaps prestige.
I'm not arguing to get rid of all incentives except money. Those other levers are vital. I'm arguing against a system with no money.
