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Earning potential is a proxy for usefulness, which is in turn a guide for resource allocation. If you rule it out as a criteria then you're basically arguing to
by thu2111 6y ago
Earning potential is a proxy for usefulness, which is in turn a guide for resource allocation. If you rule it out as a criteria then you're basically arguing to fund lots of useless stuff, which is a pretty common academic argument, but hard to justify when people have to get into life-long debt to fund it.
- avmich 6y ago> Earning potential is a proxy for usefulness, which is in turn a guide for resource allocation. Ah, if only Warren Buffet was as useful as a handful of nurses. IOW, it's not a universally accepted opinion, by a long shot.
- thu2111 6y agoNo, it basically is: "can we get rid of prices and still have a great economy" was the 20th century's fight. It was resolved conclusively in favour of no - not even the Chinese try to argue for non-market economies these days. The only people who still argue about whether prices and earning potential is a good proxy for usefulness are people who are ideologically blinded to the lessons of history. Warren Buffet is in fact a lot more useful than a handful of nurses: not in the same context obviously. If you need a nurse you need a nurse. But measured coldly and rationally, in terms of number of lives affected and amount of value created for sheer number of people, it's hard to beat the Sage. If a random nurse quits their job tomorrow nobody will notice. If Buffet dies, the world will notice.
- staticman2 6y agoEarning money is a proxy for how good you are at earning money. It has nothing to do with usefulness: you can earn money at things that hurt society.