Why Executioners Have Been Paid So Well Throughout History

Adam Smith taught us years ago that personal preferences play a huge role in labor markets, something that we often forget today.

Nearly a quarter-century ago I watched Monster’s Ball, an Academy-Award nominated romance drama and the first film produced by Lee Daniels. 

The movie stars Halle Berry and Billy Bob Thornton, who plays Hank Grotowski, a prison guard ordered to oversee the execution of a convicted murderer married to a young woman (Halle Berry).

Monster’s Ball is a very good movie and brought home an Oscar for Berry, who played Leticia Musgrove, the widow who unknowingly finds love with the man who executed her husband (weird, right?).

But one of the only things I remember from the movie is how miserable  Billy Bob Thornton’s Hank seems.  The only happiness in his life, before he falls in love, appears to be the cup of black coffee and bowl of chocolate ice cream he enjoys at the local diner each day. The film suggests Hank’s unhappiness stems in part from his occupation, which kind of makes sense.

I have difficulty imagining a job I’d enjoy less than being an executioner of my fellow citizens; and economics suggests I’m not alone.

While good data is not easy to find, an abundance of historical records suggest that executioners were compensated quite well, largely because nobody wanted the job, something Adam Smith observed in The Wealth of Nations.

In his seminal work, Smith explained how labor markets work, noting that wages are determined by all sorts of factors, varying “with the ease or hardship, the cleanliness or dirtiness, the honourableness or dishonourableness, of the employment.”

A journeyman tailor, Smith noted, tended to earn less than a journeyman weaver, whose work was much more difficult. In turn, a journeyman weaver typically earned less than a seasoned blacksmith, whose work was dirtier. Yet Smith noted that a journeyman blacksmith “seldom earns so much in twelve hours, as a collier, who is only a labourer, does in eight.” 

Colliers (coal miners), Smith noted. were paid more because their work tended to be even filthier than the blacksmith’s, and more dangerous. But those were not the only reasons. 

Blacksmith work was seen as a more “honourable profession,” Smith wrote, and that mattered, too. Similarly, jobs that were seen as disgraceful or less than honorable saw the opposite effect. 

“The trade of a butcher is a brutal and an odious business; but it is in most places more profitable than the greater part of common trades. The most detestable of all employments, that of public executioner, is, in proportion to the quantity of work done, better paid than any common trade whatever.”

While customs and wages around the executing profession vary by country and era, an abundance of evidences shows that Smith was correct: the role of executioner was a highly stigmatized profession.

Smithsonian Magazine points out that for centuries in Europe the role of executioner was a family affair, a kind of hereditary curse that was passed down from generation to generation. Families didn’t get to choose the job, they were stuck with it, in no small part because of the infamy of the role. 

“Throughout the early modern period, and indeed through the Revolution as well, one of the most effective means of impugning someone’s moral character was to insinuate that they had been seen dining with the executioner,” Paul Friedland, professor of history at Cornell University and author of Seeing Justice Done: The Age of Spectacular Capital Punishment in France.

Other types of coercion and incentives were also utilized, historical records show. In some cases, family members of the convicted were pressed into serving as executioner, while in others cases petty criminals were offered a pardon if they took up the task of executing a fellow convict.

When markets were employed instead of coercion, records suggest that, just like Smith said, executioners were well-compensated by labor markets. 

“In the 13th century, an executioner could make five schillings per execution,” writes historian Samantha Franco. “Comparatively, that’s about 25 days’ worth of work for other skilled tradesmen of the period. By the 15th century, they could earn 10 schillings per killing, about 16 times more than tradesmen made in a single day.”

Today, the compensation for executioners is hard to pin down. But it’s clear that at least some of them are making serious bank.

The point Smith was making was that labor markets account for all sorts of information, factors that are often overlooked. People often say things like “teachers are underpaid” or “nurses are underpaid,” and I get it. I used to be a newspaper reporter, and I remember thinking how poorly we were paid — until I found out that the local TV reporters were paid even worse. (Much worse, in fact.) 

The thing is, many people want to be talking on TV, writing articles, or teaching in classrooms. These are considered “honourable” professions by many, and unlike nursing, you won’t even need to change a bedpan or stick someone with a needle.

Adam Smith’s point reminds us that personal preferences play a huge role in labor markets, something that diversity and inclusion champions often forget.

This article first appeared on The Daily Economy.