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You’re confusing productivity with leverage. A person who harvests cabbage arguably already produces 70k worth of value every year- they just don’t have any le

You’re confusing productivity with leverage. A person who harvests cabbage arguably already produces 70k worth of value every year- they just don’t have any leverage to claim any of that value for themselves since they are easily replaced. It has nothing to do with how much value they produce. By the same token there are only so many technical jobs in any economy, and if the supply of those jobs increases beyond the demand you’ll just see a lot of extra credentials and other filters placed to eliminate the excess. Edit: and of course the extreme, canonical example of this phenomenon is people who have no jobs but hold lots of stocks, which allows them to extract tremendous economic rents from their leverage as the owners of the land, machinery and organizations required to make the economy run, but without personally contributing any value at all.

tg3 8y ago
Hmm, I'm not sure I agree with the specific example given here. How can you say that a cabbage harvester produces $70k in value per year when they are paid much less than that, and every part of the supply chain for cabbage almost certainly enjoys tiny margins (cabbage farms, cabbage distributors, and grocery stores are not known as high margin businesses as far as I am aware). You might argue that the excess value being produced by the cabbage harvester is being accrued by the consumer - that they are enjoying significant value from the cabbage that they aren't paying for. But I doubt that too - I'm almost certain that if the price of cabbage were to, say, double, that cabbage sales would plummet. I'm not saying that jobs are not always compensated with their true value. You're right that frequently people extract much more or much less value than they produce. But I think that your example is not one of these, and I'm curious if there is research about how many* jobs actually fit this description.
- fallingfrog 8y ago
  If all the stockbrokers of the world or the people writing vision statements or selling timeshares or what have you went on strike, would anyone notice? If all the food harvesters of the world went on strike, how long would the human race last? Whose job is more essential?
- hopler 8y ago
  If the cost of all food doubled, would everyone eat half as much?

tg3 8y ago

Hmm, I'm not sure I agree with the specific example given here. How can you say that a cabbage harvester produces $70k in value per year when they are paid much less than that, and every part of the supply chain for cabbage almost certainly enjoys tiny margins (cabbage farms, cabbage distributors, and grocery stores are not known as high margin businesses as far as I am aware). You might argue that the excess value being produced by the cabbage harvester is being accrued by the consumer - that they are enjoying significant value from the cabbage that they aren't paying for. But I doubt that too - I'm almost certain that if the price of cabbage were to, say, double, that cabbage sales would plummet. I'm not saying that jobs are not always compensated with their true value. You're right that frequently people extract much more or much less value than they produce. But I think that your example is not one of these, and I'm curious if there is research about how many* jobs actually fit this description.

fallingfrog 8y ago
If all the stockbrokers of the world or the people writing vision statements or selling timeshares or what have you went on strike, would anyone notice? If all the food harvesters of the world went on strike, how long would the human race last? Whose job is more essential?
hopler 8y ago
If the cost of all food doubled, would everyone eat half as much?