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Not all work is equally valuable. Not all work is equally doable. Some work requires decades patience and sacrifice before one is competent enough to perform it

Not all work is equally valuable. Not all work is equally doable. Some work requires decades patience and sacrifice before one is competent enough to perform it. Some work is physically or cognitively beyond the vast majority of the population. It doesn't make sense to expect all jobs to have all the same benefits and privelegdes. Even if we pretend that all humans are fundamentally equal in ability, inequality will always exist, so long as humans are free to make choices in a world of finite resources and time. Moreso, inequality is not intrinsically bad, for it is a great motivator for the kind of innovation that raises the common floor, which is the more important measure. If you're able to eat, drink, and shelter during a global pandemic, while your entire country is on lockdown, and your economy has crawled to a standstill, then you're in a pretty good place.

devcpp 6y ago
To add to this, forget qualifications and experience. If a job pays well, that in itself is undeniable proof that it has greater value, no justification needed. Capitalism works not because it rewards on someone's definition of merit, but because it rewards doing what people want.
- callmeal 6y ago
  The sad part is that most of the jobs that have great value pay so little. Imagine considering sanitation, seasonal farming, teaching, childcare and other jobs as "low value". Says quite a lot about our values as a society doesn't it?
  - tathougies 6y ago
    seasonal farming is not poorly paid: https://money.cnn.com/2012/11/27/news/economy/farming/index.html https://money.cnn.com/2012/11/27/news/economy/farming/index....
- xkapastel 6y ago
  I think the coronavirus has proven this to be false. Many of the so called "essential jobs" are low paid, but the "essential" label is an acknowledgement of their high value to society.
  - tathougies 6y ago
    They are low paid because in most times anyone can and would be willing to do them. Now, no one wants to do them, so pay will increase if the lockdowns continue.
    - cameronbrown 6y ago
      Why is this controversial? It's the truth, however unfair it seems.
  - oneiftwo 6y ago
    This is similar to the price of water. Yes water is essential but it is readily available and so the price is low. Same for many essential jobs. Turns out a lot of the work necessary to keep civilization ticking is menial and requires no specialization. This is not a statement of the value of the workers (though indirectly it unfortunately often is), only the work they they provide.
Avicebron 6y ago
I really can't understand this mindset, it views the system that we have as fundamentally meritocratic and that only hard work matters. This is demonstrably false with a cursory review of how our (the US) education system, economy, and geographic distributions reward and punish people.
- zo1 6y ago
  Of course we don't have a proper meritocracy or a significant one, and I don't think the OP or anyone advocating it thinks so. Meritocracy is an ideal to strive for and one we'd probably never fully obtain due to the nature of the universe, randomness, and plain out inequality attached to circumstance. What it does mean is that we should aim to reward based on merit in as many places as is feasible and, one could argue, fair. I.e.: to each according to his value and ability, not purely according to his need. But do so with compassion. I think a fair bit of what goes wrong when this topic and other related ones come up, is that people that advocate for things such as meritocracy are immediately portrayed as heartless and lacking compassion because they advocate for that thing.
- rmrfstar 6y ago
  > it views the system that we have as fundamentally meritocratic Agreed. There is another dimension to it as well. Labor pricing is set by "replacement cost." In a country where workers have been made precarious intentionally [1], replacement cost will be much lower than (a) the surplus value created by the worker, (b) the risk a worker bares in work activities. There is empirical evidence that this is taking place on a grand scale. [2] [1] https://chomsky.info/20120508/ https://chomsky.info/20120508/ [2] https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/jofi.12909 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/jofi.12909
  - Robotbeat 6y ago
    Does this imply there aren’t enough employers, so that collusion among employers is feasible?
    - rmrfstar 6y ago
Dylan16807 6y ago
Income inequality is not intrinsically bad, but we have too much of it in the US. Let's get the ratio of income between the top decile and bottom decile somewhere below 10:1.
- rmrfstar 6y ago
  At a certain point the ratio is so high that it cannot be explained by differing abilities, and can only be explained by the structure of the market. Let's say a brain surgeon makes $2m/year. That makes sense, they are uncommonly talented. Does it make sense that someone can amass as wealth 50,000 years of brain surgeon economic output ($100bn)? If the distribution of human endowments is Gaussian, as it likely is, this level of wealth accumulation cannot be explained by superior productivity alone.
  - smabie 6y ago
    Sure it can, because there's different dimensions of the gaussian distribution. Maybe it takes being in the top 1% on 4 different dimensions to amass over $10bn. Using the population of Earth, that means that on average only 90 such individuals exist who are in the 1% on all 4 dimensions. No one believes that intelligence is the only factor in outsized wealth accumulation. It's clear to me though that outsized individual wealth is derivative of a myriad of different factors.
  - tathougies 6y ago
    > Does it make sense that someone can amass as wealth 50,000 years of brain surgeon economic output ($100bn)? If the distribution of human endowments is Gaussian, as it likely is, this level of wealth accumulation cannot be explained by superior productivity alone. Well, yeah, if someone figured out how to operate an 10000 brains at once, then all of a sudden one would think that he ought to make 50000 years worth of brain surgeon economic output in five years.
    - rmrfstar 6y ago
      I like your hypothetical, but I'm going to change it a little. Let's say Amazon records its warehouse workers and captures data which it can use to train industrial robots at some future date. Those industrial robots have $X of economic value. Who created that value? Did the workers whose data enabled it? Did the DARPA/NSF funded university system who pushed the techniques to the point of being production-ready? Or was all the value created by the Amazon engineer who blended the established modelling techniques and the data? It's an honest question about the source of value creation and whether inputs are being priced reasonably, efficiently, or fairly.
ianleeclark 6y ago
> Not all work is equally valuable. Not all work is equally doable. Some work requires decades patience and sacrifice before one is competent enough to perform it. Some work is physically or cognitively beyond the vast majority of the population. You're right. Designing shirts that work well in both the board room and discoteca is incredibly strenuous work which is why only people who have the correct inter-cranial skull slope (e.g., Wyatt Koch) can do this work.
- tathougies 6y ago
  I mean... it kinda is. Not only is textile design difficult in and of itself (my mom is a very very good hobbyist seamstress, and it takes a lot of work to make even simple garments that work well and feel good), but getting the supply chain running is very difficult and beyond both the skill and patience of most people. You have to be comfortable with not only sewing, but also factory machinery. My mother wanted to make clothes at one point in her life but decided she couldn't scale because she was not comfortable with the large textile die cutting machines that she would have to use to scale. I dunno who Wyatt Koch is, but if he has designed a shirt and managed to produce it in such volume and with such materials as to be attractive to men (I assume) with money who want to be comfortable, he should be commended. That is very difficult.
  - ianleeclark 6y ago
    Alternatively he could just use a bunch of money inherited from his family and, by merit of having investment capital and a box of crayons, be able to profit off the people he hires.
    - oneiftwo 6y ago
      Have you ever actually had to hire someone to do something nontrivial? Statistically speaking, hiring good help is difficult. Hiring good help repeatedly is a skill. Building an entire business in an unfamiliar domain is certainly easier with inherited money, but still requires rare talent. Which is why as another poster pointed out, the 1% has a 50% generational turnover.

devcpp 6y ago

To add to this, forget qualifications and experience. If a job pays well, that in itself is undeniable proof that it has greater value, no justification needed. Capitalism works not because it rewards on someone's definition of merit, but because it rewards doing what people want.

callmeal 6y ago
The sad part is that most of the jobs that have great value pay so little. Imagine considering sanitation, seasonal farming, teaching, childcare and other jobs as "low value". Says quite a lot about our values as a society doesn't it?
- tathougies 6y ago
  seasonal farming is not poorly paid: https://money.cnn.com/2012/11/27/news/economy/farming/index.html https://money.cnn.com/2012/11/27/news/economy/farming/index....
xkapastel 6y ago
I think the coronavirus has proven this to be false. Many of the so called "essential jobs" are low paid, but the "essential" label is an acknowledgement of their high value to society.
- tathougies 6y ago
  They are low paid because in most times anyone can and would be willing to do them. Now, no one wants to do them, so pay will increase if the lockdowns continue.
  - cameronbrown 6y ago
    Why is this controversial? It's the truth, however unfair it seems.
- oneiftwo 6y ago
  This is similar to the price of water. Yes water is essential but it is readily available and so the price is low. Same for many essential jobs. Turns out a lot of the work necessary to keep civilization ticking is menial and requires no specialization. This is not a statement of the value of the workers (though indirectly it unfortunately often is), only the work they they provide.

Avicebron 6y ago

I really can't understand this mindset, it views the system that we have as fundamentally meritocratic and that only hard work matters. This is demonstrably false with a cursory review of how our (the US) education system, economy, and geographic distributions reward and punish people.

zo1 6y ago
Of course we don't have a proper meritocracy or a significant one, and I don't think the OP or anyone advocating it thinks so. Meritocracy is an ideal to strive for and one we'd probably never fully obtain due to the nature of the universe, randomness, and plain out inequality attached to circumstance. What it does mean is that we should aim to reward based on merit in as many places as is feasible and, one could argue, fair. I.e.: to each according to his value and ability, not purely according to his need. But do so with compassion. I think a fair bit of what goes wrong when this topic and other related ones come up, is that people that advocate for things such as meritocracy are immediately portrayed as heartless and lacking compassion because they advocate for that thing.
rmrfstar 6y ago
> it views the system that we have as fundamentally meritocratic Agreed. There is another dimension to it as well. Labor pricing is set by "replacement cost." In a country where workers have been made precarious intentionally [1], replacement cost will be much lower than (a) the surplus value created by the worker, (b) the risk a worker bares in work activities. There is empirical evidence that this is taking place on a grand scale. [2] [1] https://chomsky.info/20120508/ https://chomsky.info/20120508/ [2] https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/jofi.12909 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/jofi.12909
- Robotbeat 6y ago
  Does this imply there aren’t enough employers, so that collusion among employers is feasible?
  - rmrfstar 6y ago

Dylan16807 6y ago

Income inequality is not intrinsically bad, but we have too much of it in the US. Let's get the ratio of income between the top decile and bottom decile somewhere below 10:1.

rmrfstar 6y ago
At a certain point the ratio is so high that it cannot be explained by differing abilities, and can only be explained by the structure of the market. Let's say a brain surgeon makes $2m/year. That makes sense, they are uncommonly talented. Does it make sense that someone can amass as wealth 50,000 years of brain surgeon economic output ($100bn)? If the distribution of human endowments is Gaussian, as it likely is, this level of wealth accumulation cannot be explained by superior productivity alone.
- smabie 6y ago
  Sure it can, because there's different dimensions of the gaussian distribution. Maybe it takes being in the top 1% on 4 different dimensions to amass over $10bn. Using the population of Earth, that means that on average only 90 such individuals exist who are in the 1% on all 4 dimensions. No one believes that intelligence is the only factor in outsized wealth accumulation. It's clear to me though that outsized individual wealth is derivative of a myriad of different factors.
- tathougies 6y ago
  > Does it make sense that someone can amass as wealth 50,000 years of brain surgeon economic output ($100bn)? If the distribution of human endowments is Gaussian, as it likely is, this level of wealth accumulation cannot be explained by superior productivity alone. Well, yeah, if someone figured out how to operate an 10000 brains at once, then all of a sudden one would think that he ought to make 50000 years worth of brain surgeon economic output in five years.
  - rmrfstar 6y ago
    I like your hypothetical, but I'm going to change it a little. Let's say Amazon records its warehouse workers and captures data which it can use to train industrial robots at some future date. Those industrial robots have $X of economic value. Who created that value? Did the workers whose data enabled it? Did the DARPA/NSF funded university system who pushed the techniques to the point of being production-ready? Or was all the value created by the Amazon engineer who blended the established modelling techniques and the data? It's an honest question about the source of value creation and whether inputs are being priced reasonably, efficiently, or fairly.

ianleeclark 6y ago

> Not all work is equally valuable. Not all work is equally doable. Some work requires decades patience and sacrifice before one is competent enough to perform it. Some work is physically or cognitively beyond the vast majority of the population. You're right. Designing shirts that work well in both the board room and discoteca is incredibly strenuous work which is why only people who have the correct inter-cranial skull slope (e.g., Wyatt Koch) can do this work.

tathougies 6y ago
I mean... it kinda is. Not only is textile design difficult in and of itself (my mom is a very very good hobbyist seamstress, and it takes a lot of work to make even simple garments that work well and feel good), but getting the supply chain running is very difficult and beyond both the skill and patience of most people. You have to be comfortable with not only sewing, but also factory machinery. My mother wanted to make clothes at one point in her life but decided she couldn't scale because she was not comfortable with the large textile die cutting machines that she would have to use to scale. I dunno who Wyatt Koch is, but if he has designed a shirt and managed to produce it in such volume and with such materials as to be attractive to men (I assume) with money who want to be comfortable, he should be commended. That is very difficult.
- ianleeclark 6y ago
  Alternatively he could just use a bunch of money inherited from his family and, by merit of having investment capital and a box of crayons, be able to profit off the people he hires.
  - oneiftwo 6y ago
    Have you ever actually had to hire someone to do something nontrivial? Statistically speaking, hiring good help is difficult. Hiring good help repeatedly is a skill. Building an entire business in an unfamiliar domain is certainly easier with inherited money, but still requires rare talent. Which is why as another poster pointed out, the 1% has a 50% generational turnover.