This use of the word “passionate” makes me queasy, precisely because it papers over such a huge, wilfully-ignored open can of writhing worms.
Simply put, outside of manufacturing, the orthodox economic picture of labor is plain wrong. We’re expected to think of nursing or singing jobs as basically the same as factory jobs, and then when this fails to make any sense it’s waved away as “mumble something something passion”. It’s nonsense. Most labor cannot be usefully understood as a market transaction, period.
Or more specifically, the model only applies when workers are on the edge of subsistence. Then it becomes a simple transaction, because you need $X to remain alive, and if your wage is less than X you can’t do the job. But outside of that case, there’s basically no relation between how well someone is paid and how well they do their job.
In other words, with respect to a large part of the workforce, economic policy is based on a model that requires people to be on the brink of ruin in order to make sense.
I would distinguish between “passion” and “duty”, though both are bullshit justifications for exploitation. “Passionate” workers are exploited by pretending that because they enjoy their work, allowing them to do it is a benefit in kind. “Dutiful” workers are exploited by simply noting that if you care for others, you won’t be able to stop caring just because you got a pay cut.
The broad solution is pretty obvious. Society as a whole demands the value that nurses and teachers and artists produce; society as a whole should foot the bill. That’s not a socialist viewpoint, it’s just a matter of basic economic plumbing. The basis of getting paid has to be showing up.
