nrh@inmet.UUCP (06/27/85)
>/**** inmet:net.politics / ubvax!tonyw / 1:48 pm Jun 21, 1985 ****/ > >Mike's got this "thing" about arrogance. He shouldn't assume >that notions of "worth" are purely personal. They happen to >be widely shared. Occupational prestige studies show that >almost everyone shares the same "notions" of what are better >and what are worse jobs, at least in the US and Canada -- >and I'd bet in much of the rest of the world too. > >According to the same work, done over years, rankings of occupational >prestige are also very constant, almost unchanging over large >spans of time. Hence these notions aren't even fickle. So >asking employers (not the rest of the world, just employers) to >adapt to the notions of "worth" held by the vast majority is >a clear and specifiable political proposal. Whether clear >political proposals are "arrogant" or not is up to the beholder. > Citations, please. Or a retraction. As for your notion that they are not "purely personal" because they are "widely shared", I suggest you rephrase the sentences involved, because beliefs may be both purely personal and widely agreed to.
nrh@inmet.UUCP (07/06/85)
>/**** inmet:net.politics / lll-crg!muffy / 2:30 am Jul 3, 1985 ****/ >In article <1340250@acf4.UUCP> mms1646@acf4.UUCP (Michael M. Sykora) writes: >>>/* beth@sphinx.UChicago.UUCP (Beth Christy) / 10:15 am Jun 27, 1985 */ >> >>>Right. We should pay nurses less because it's *so* much more pleasant and >>>rewarding to watch people in agony die than it is to do dirty and dangerous >>>work like resurfacing roads. Earth to Frank, Earth to Frank - methinks >>>you're on the wrong planet. >>> >> >>Then why don't these teachers, nurses and social workers become road >>resurfacers? > >Why? Has it not occurred to anyone on here that some people might actually >take jobs because that is the kind off job they want? And given that they >enjoy the job, they *still* might wish to be well or appropriately paid? I have long wished to have the job job of reading sci-fi novels and cavorting with er, cavortable members of the opposite sex. Remarkably, I don't feel that the government should step in and offer to pay me a high salary to do this, because I recognize that I've no right to force others to pay for my preferences. >And that they might know they would be better paid in aother job, >but not want to *do* that job? Wanting to do a given job is surely an "intangible benefit", although you seem to disparage the idea below. Since they want to do one job and not others (the nurses would rather be nurses than construction workers), they prefer the "nurse package" to the "construction worker package", that is, the (benefits - costs) for trying to be a nurse are greater (in the nurses' view) than the net benefits of being (or trying to be) construction workers. >I mean, I'd probably be better paid as a >plumber (*grin*) but hacking is all I want to do. Also, for all this >talk of "intangible benefits," intangible things aren't very good as food, >clothing, or shelter...they're too...well...intangible (*smile*). If they're tangible enough to make people choose one job over another, they're tangible enough to cause supply-shifts for workers for that job, which in turn will cause the salary offered for the job to shift. In short, "intangible" benefits are very real. Your bank balance is also intangible, but it has tangible effects, including permitting you to buy food, so in one sense intangible things are quite good as food and so forth. There's another problem with causing wages to be "appropriate" by some sort of fiat (that is, some sort of forced interference in the free market). The price system is a massive instrument of information transfer. That hackers are paid less than plumbers means that SOME people (in particular, the people who want plumbers) are willing to pay that much for plumbers. Making them be paid the same, low, salary as hackers, for example, would mean that the people who wanted the plumbers a lot could not transfer this information through the price system. This is serious -- if your hand went numb, you'd find it difficult to grasp things efficiently -- if an economy no longer transmits information, then it loses efficiency. If you lose efficiency, you lower standard of living. All that said, I wish to make it clear that it's fine by me if you wish to raise the wages of some jobs, and lower those of others NON-COERCIVELY -- I don't believe you can do so without convincing people they need plumbers less or hackers more, and convincing people non-coercively generally means that they had to think about the subject and agree with you, which means that their (hopefully more informed) opinion is driving the changes you want. I'm all for more informed opinions. > > Muffy >/* ---------- */ > - Nat Howard