"The garbage men who take the trash off my curb provide more value than a lot of white collar management, in my opinion" The garbage men in my city get paid $5

"The garbage men who take the trash off my curb provide more value than a lot of white collar management, in my opinion" The garbage men in my city get paid $50,000+/year (it's in the midwest). I think this is a pretty good wage. "Do you really think an 8 hour day sitting at a desk deserves twice as much pay as an 8 hour day digging a ditch? What the fuck is value?" It's not for me (or you) to decide. If someone is willing to pay a ditch digger $300,000/year, so be it. The market decides value and it's usually based on supply/demand. Since anyone who is under 40, healthy, and has two legs can dig a ditch, I don't see the wages being that high. "That's true of a lot of shitty jobs, and it's bullshit that the people who have figured out how to exploit these shitty jobs to generate 'value' also somehow deserve respect, while the exploited are denigrated for their moral failures (such as laziness)." Why don't you start a company and pay ditch diggers the same as office workers? I know you won't, because you would rather force other companies to do it instead.