By that logic, cleaning carpets and truck driving should be among the highest paying jobs in the US, but I doubt that one would get a straight line if one were to plot "how much people hate their job" vs income.

Also, it's probably a good rule of thumb to ask yourself with any economic theory of the last century that is of Western origin: "how much did the political pressure to prove the Soviets wrong at all costs influence this line of thinking, or the adoption of it?" I think it applies here.

I am not saying carrots and sticks have no influence whatsoever, just that thinking it explains everything is extremely simplistic. Even if they did work universally, there are more types of carrots and sticks than just economical ones, and they are often conflicting. Then there are types of motivation that are different altogether. For example: there is clear evidence that rewards can be counterproductive to motivation in certain situations because they undermine intrinsic motivation (which works differently). Just look up the psychological research cited by critics of gamification, for example.

Anyway, this topic is way to big for a HN comment, but what I'm trying to say is that there's much more to motivation. By and large, the evidence suggests that once a lack of money as an impediment to "personal freedom" (I'm oversimplifying here) is off the table, people are motivated by different reasons. Social reasons, moral reasons, hedonistic reasons, you name it.