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Any job that someone's willing to pay to have done - by paying for the job, they indicate that it's worth that much money, and hence at least as useful as that
by mhansen 15y ago
Any job that someone's willing to pay to have done - by paying for the job, they indicate that it's worth that much money, and hence at least as useful as that money was.
- vegai 15y agoLawyers, drug dealers, assassins, politicians, bankers, managers, accountants, stock traders, to mention a few: all paid significant amounts but not really that worthy, are they?
- mhansen 15y agoThey wouldn't be paid if they weren't worth the money they were getting; the customers would rather keep their money. Lawyers: Do I really need to explain that they perform an important, valuable role? Drug dealers: Can't say much here. Drugs are tricky, economists call them inelastic, and they can make people irrational. Bankers: I sure like being able to invest my money and use it everywhere via EFTPOS Accountants: It's a hell of a drag doing taxes. It's very valuable to have someone do this work for you (if it wasn't, everyone would do their own accounting). Bottom line: determining value is a tricky economic/algorithmic question. Luckily, we have a price system, where people can set prices. If the customers pay that price, that's a strong indicator that the service is worth that much. It's not perfect (see bubbles), but it works pretty well on average.
- tybris 15y agoWhy not? Could you give more concrete examples?
- wolfgangK 15y agoThat something is valuable to someone does not mean that it is useful for society as a whole cf. zero sum games or worse: Think about the guy whose job was to hide defects in nuclear power plant : certainly valuable for tepco, but for society as a whole? http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-03-23/fukushima-engineer-says-he-covered-up-flaw-at-shut-reactor.html http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-03-23/fukushima-engineer-...