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Fallacy, or just an application of supply and demand? In general, requiring many years of education reduces the supply of a given profession, which raises salar
by hyperpape 12y ago
Fallacy, or just an application of supply and demand? In general, requiring many years of education reduces the supply of a given profession, which raises salaries (though demand still helps explain why doctors make more than philosophy professors).
- ekianjo 12y agoWhat matters is not the supply of a given profession, it's its market value or utility value (for the said market - you define it as demand). The market has not much use for philosophy professors, that's precisely why they don't make much money. Rarity is never a single factor for value definition. If it were that simple, you could just tell your kids "study what nobody else is studying and you'll do just fine".
- hyperpape 12y agoHence supply and demand. But what you're describing ignores supply, and that's wrong. If you doubled the supply of doctors (or concretely made things that doctors do be doable by nurses), you would get lower prices, as they competed for business. Sometimes the restrictions on supply are artificial, sometimes they are natural. Medicine are a good example of both effects. Being a doctor is hard, and requires a lot of education. But there are also limitations on how nurses and other medical practicioners can work (dental hygienists can't clean your teeth unless they are supervised by a dentist).