Comment by degamad

I agree with you, but I think that there's one area of the argument that is worth figuring out how to strengthen.

> If we all invest in our employees then when they leave another company gets the rewards. That's still true when "we" are the "other company". You still benefit regardless. Under the condition that most companies (or rather at least the big companies) collude in this way. They have good reason to as coalitions maximize utility for all parties involved.

You are right that in a world where most companies collude in this manner, we all benefit.

However, in that world, a company that chooses not to contribute (by investing in inexperienced employees) also has access to the same benefits (trained employees).

Furthermore, they can use the money saved by not contributing to inflate the value of the trained employees (offering them higher pay), so they have an incentive to not contribute. This doubly deprives the rest of us of some of that benefit.

How do we adjust the incentives so that bad actors are not motivated to cheat the system?

(In case it seems like a familiar scenario, yes, this is similar to playing Iterated Prisoners' Dilemma with the rest of the world.)