4 ms·

>What's the value of a person's work that isn't just determined by the first part? The value of the work done, either in a physical sense (because it produces

>What's the value of a person's work that isn't just determined by the first part? The value of the work done, either in a physical sense (because it produces something of value) or in a societal sense (because it involves doing something of value). If you're the best hole-digger in the world, and people are constantly trying to hire you to dig holes so that they can fill them in, then you would be highly paid - but would your work be "valuable"? Probably very few people are true free-market believers when it comes to the idea of fair pay.

chii 6y ago
> but would your work be "valuable"? yes, if somebody else would be willing to swap their hard earned "value" for it. The problem is when people making decisions to swap is not swapping their own personal "value" they accumulated themselves, but someone else's (usually the tax payers').
jonathanstrange 6y ago
IMHO the problem is deeper than that. Economists often wrongly and silently presume that free market equilibria lead to desirable states of society but there is nothing in their theories that would warrant this. It works for simple trades (bargaining) but once you're at the level of institutions there is no need for a match between institutional needs and the preferences and desires of individuals in a society. For instance, to build a certain product a company needs a certain distribution of different types of work. These needs of the larger institution need not match individuals' life choices at all. Some jobs can even be so desirable that workers are willing to lose money in the long run (that's e.g. how Amazon benefits from selling the works of self-publishers who often overall lose money). Consequently, since people need to make a living, even in a fully functioning free job market there can be a substantially large number of people who are pressed into choices that make their lives miserable.
wizzwizz4 6y ago
> If you're the best hole-digger in the world, and people are constantly trying to hire you to dig holes so that they can fill them in, then you would be highly paid - but would your work be "valuable"? If people get transcendent joy out of filling in holes, or the filling-in of holes otherwise matters to them, then this is valuable. In a real-world scenario, it's a bullshit job: https://www.strike.coop/bullshit-jobs/ https://www.strike.coop/bullshit-jobs/

chii 6y ago

> but would your work be "valuable"? yes, if somebody else would be willing to swap their hard earned "value" for it. The problem is when people making decisions to swap is not swapping their own personal "value" they accumulated themselves, but someone else's (usually the tax payers').

jonathanstrange 6y ago

IMHO the problem is deeper than that. Economists often wrongly and silently presume that free market equilibria lead to desirable states of society but there is nothing in their theories that would warrant this. It works for simple trades (bargaining) but once you're at the level of institutions there is no need for a match between institutional needs and the preferences and desires of individuals in a society. For instance, to build a certain product a company needs a certain distribution of different types of work. These needs of the larger institution need not match individuals' life choices at all. Some jobs can even be so desirable that workers are willing to lose money in the long run (that's e.g. how Amazon benefits from selling the works of self-publishers who often overall lose money). Consequently, since people need to make a living, even in a fully functioning free job market there can be a substantially large number of people who are pressed into choices that make their lives miserable.

wizzwizz4 6y ago

> If you're the best hole-digger in the world, and people are constantly trying to hire you to dig holes so that they can fill them in, then you would be highly paid - but would your work be "valuable"? If people get transcendent joy out of filling in holes, or the filling-in of holes otherwise matters to them, then this is valuable. In a real-world scenario, it's a bullshit job: https://www.strike.coop/bullshit-jobs/ https://www.strike.coop/bullshit-jobs/