Instead of businesses and individuals deciding one's pay could a neutral third party negotiate pay?

Seems like that has been tried. It’s called unions.

@Jaxk Or binding arbitration?

For most workers, that would be an expensive process, and who would pay? And to whose benefit?

It sounds all hunky dory and good for the worker until you throw in real life experiences. If that happened in the tech industry, programmers, developers, and engineers would find themselves earning way less, just enough for their “needs and a little savings.”

I earn a good living because I provide insight and creativity to develop aspects of our business to help it grow and earn more. Reduce my wages to “needs and some savings” and you take away my incentive to work as I do.

My agents do that sort of thing. But they aren’t neutral at all. They look out for themselves more than me or the client. I like it that way.

In a theoretical free market, labor is just another commodity, and wages, are determined by supply and demand, part of Adam Smith’s invisible hand making an optimum allocation of resources. In the real world, some regulation is required, but wages are still pretty much determined by supply and demand. Variations on this principle, like that tried in the Soviet Union, have been disastrous.