Many people would argue that nurses provide more value to society than investment bankers*, yet the latter position is paid significantly more than the former. This fact is often lamented. My question is: which mechanisms have been proposed to actually solve this perceived problem and achieve wages that are aligned with social value production (however one may define that term)?
Here is what I believe is the underlying structural issue (please correct me if you think I'm mistaken here): wages are tied to productivity in terms of monetary value. Aspects like ecological damage done or social value production are (mostly) ignored. [I believe that in economics, things that prices don't account for but possibly should are called externalities.] Jobs like investment banking produce a lot of monetary value, while jobs like nursing produce a lot of social but not a lot of monetary value - thus the difference in wages between the two.
For ecological damage, CO2 taxation is a proposed solution that works essentially by artificially adding (negative) ecological value production to monetary value production, and thus achieving a price that incorporates both. I could imagine a similar solution for incorporating social aspects, i.e., society might subsidize either the wages of people working in socially desirable but unprofitable jobs, or the price of the services they offer. (Society would thus "internalize" the externality "social good done".) Has something like this been proposed?
I am interested in all kinds of proposed solutions that attempt to solve the perceived structural problem.
(This a follow-up to my previous question in which I was convinced by the many great answers that money is probably the most efficient means of communicating social value.)
*This is an arbitrary but somewhat popular comparison - for the purposes of this question it's irrelevant whether you and I believe that this is actually true.