Re: How do I convince New Agers that not everybody should get the same wage?
PROTECTED] Reply-To: john hull [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: How do I convince New Agers that not everybody should get the same wage? Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2004 13:07:04 -0800 Since beautiful women make me stupid, and since I am a bit curious, I have become involved in a local currency project. One reoccuring theme is that everybody should be paid the same wage for their labor. Doctor or bagboy, judge or record store clerk, the only fair way to do things is for everybody to get the same pay per hour. I fail to see the wisdom in this. The sentiment seems to revolve around social justice: No person is worth any other, etc. How would you suggest I argue otherwise. One option is to show that not everybody even values time equally, let alone an hour of effort. However, I'm not familiar with the research, if any, on that, and I get the impression that wages play a role in the estimation of time which would make my argument circular. Alternatively, I could just say, Do the math, and then say that people get paid what they bring in and try to impress them with a little calculus. I haven't really thought that one through too heavily. Another option I thought of is to compare Spongebob Squarepants with Squidward Tentacles--the uberfry-cook vs. the surly cashier--to show how Spongebob adds armloads of revenue, whereas Squidward produces only minimally. Then I'd try to explain why it is fair for Spongebob to be paid more. I'm sure this will backfire when someone points out some plot device from some episode that will derail the whole affair. What would you suggest? How can I demonstrate, in a relatively short period of time, that imposing equal wages isn't the best way to organize the world? __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Hotjobs: Enter the Signing Bonus Sweepstakes http://hotjobs.sweepstakes.yahoo.com/signingbonus _ Let the new MSN Premium Internet Software make the most of your high-speed experience. http://join.msn.com/?pgmarket=en-uspage=byoa/premST=1
Re: How do I convince New Agers that not everybody should get the same wage?
On 2004-01-19, Kevin Carson uttered: By competition. And how does that arrive at this solution? Simply by depreciating below their labor value the commodities which are by reason of their quality or quantity useless or unnecessary, ...and in making the producers feel, ...that they have manufactured articles absolutely useless or unnecessary, or that they have manufactured a superfluity of otherwise useful articles. Yep. In fact seem to remember that Popper also takes note of this in Open Society, when he argues that Marx should have just forgotten about labour value and taken exchange value more seriously. -- Sampo Syreeni, aka decoy - mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED], tel:+358-50-5756111 student/math+cs/helsinki university, http://www.iki.fi/~decoy/front openpgp: 050985C2/025E D175 ABE5 027C 9494 EEB0 E090 8BA9 0509 85C2
Re: How do I convince New Agers that not everybody should get the same wage?
This seems the most fool proof way to me. -Original Message- From: ArmChair List [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Eric Crampton Sent: Tuesday, January 13, 2004 4:38 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: How do I convince New Agers that not everybody should get the same wage? Why not offer to run a sharing scheme for them? They all give you their weekly paycheques, and you share them out equally to all of them. Make your money on the side by running betting pools on how long it'll be until 10% have dropped out, 20%, 50%, etc. Call them hypocrites if they won't take part in your scheme. On Tue, 13 Jan 2004, Robert A. Book wrote: Since beautiful women make me stupid, and since I am a bit curious, I have become involved in a local currency project. One reoccuring theme is that everybody should be paid the same wage for their labor. Doctor or bagboy, judge or record store clerk, the only fair way to do things is for everybody to get the same pay per hour. I fail to see the wisdom in this. The sentiment seems to revolve around social justice: No person is worth any other, etc. How would you suggest I argue otherwise. Ask why anybody would take an unpleasant job like garbage collector if they didn't get paid more for that than for a pleasant job (record store clerk? adjust the example to your audience). For doctors, you could ask why anybody would spend years going to school, doing 24-hour calls/rotations, being an intern, etc., if they didn't get paid more for that than for a job that did not require all that preparation (you probably should use a word like preparation instead of investment). (This was the arguement my father used when I was 7 or 8 years old to convine me to drop my tendencies toward what I now recognize as communism/socialism. Which says something about the mental age of leftist -- or my precosity, or both! ;-) --Robert
Re: How do I convince New Agers that not everybody should get the same wage?
Fred Foldarvy wrote: 'The sentiment seems to revolve around social justice: No person is worth any other, etc.' So long as this stays within the club, what is the harm? Well, they're doing this to try to make the world a better place. If they choose to design the currency project so that the equal wage philosophy creates a distortion, it seems reasonable that such a distortion will make the project less effective in making the world a better place. It's not that I want to rain on anybody's parade. Well, not in this particular instance, anyway. And I do like Blue Lines. Outstanding album. Anton Sherwood wrote: You've just expanded my knowledge of SbSp at least threefold. Proud? Heh, heh, heh. ---Evil Laugh - Thanks for the tips, everybody. __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Hotjobs: Enter the Signing Bonus Sweepstakes http://hotjobs.sweepstakes.yahoo.com/signingbonus
How do I convince New Agers that not everybody should get the same wage?
Since beautiful women make me stupid, and since I am a bit curious, I have become involved in a local currency project. One reoccuring theme is that everybody should be paid the same wage for their labor. Doctor or bagboy, judge or record store clerk, the only fair way to do things is for everybody to get the same pay per hour. I fail to see the wisdom in this. The sentiment seems to revolve around social justice: No person is worth any other, etc. How would you suggest I argue otherwise. One option is to show that not everybody even values time equally, let alone an hour of effort. However, I'm not familiar with the research, if any, on that, and I get the impression that wages play a role in the estimation of time which would make my argument circular. Alternatively, I could just say, Do the math, and then say that people get paid what they bring in and try to impress them with a little calculus. I haven't really thought that one through too heavily. Another option I thought of is to compare Spongebob Squarepants with Squidward Tentacles--the uberfry-cook vs. the surly cashier--to show how Spongebob adds armloads of revenue, whereas Squidward produces only minimally. Then I'd try to explain why it is fair for Spongebob to be paid more. I'm sure this will backfire when someone points out some plot device from some episode that will derail the whole affair. What would you suggest? How can I demonstrate, in a relatively short period of time, that imposing equal wages isn't the best way to organize the world? __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Hotjobs: Enter the Signing Bonus Sweepstakes http://hotjobs.sweepstakes.yahoo.com/signingbonus
Re: How do I convince New Agers that not everybody should get the same wage?
In a message dated 1/13/04 4:08:31 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: What would you suggest? How can I demonstrate, in a relatively short period of time, that imposing equal wages isn't the best way to organize the world? I used to do this all the time with my students in history classes at Iowa. I'd ask them if they really thought a ditch digger without a high school diploma should make as much as a doctor, a veterinarian, a lawyer, or someone else with at least two degrees, or I'd just ask them if they thought that after they graduate and get a job with their degree if they thought they should get paid as little as a ditch digger. I've yet to hear students say yes to either of those propositions. David Levenstam
Re: How do I convince New Agers that not everybody should get the same wage?
One line of reasoning is that people are simply different and these differences are important economically. Some people are simply better at doing certain things than others. For instance, Michael Jordan is a much better ball player than I am, and the public is willing to pay him a lot more than me to play ball. Michael Jordan is in some sense scarce, which is what makes his playing valuable in an economic sense. Not a lot of people have the ability to be excellent basketball players, but a lot of people have the ability to be excellent plumbers. This is also why diamonds cost more than pebbles. Note that this does not say anything about MJ's worth as person, or his equality before the law, and so on. The more important question, I think, is the source of the differences in people. To become a doctor, you need to spend a lot of time, money and effort. Most doctors I knew planned to be doctors when they were children, and they made many sacrifices to accomplish that goal. They spent Saturday nights studying when the rest of us were drinking beers. They were working at the lab while the rest of us were taking the literature class. Simply put, very few people would make the necessary investment to become doctors if they were not compensated for it at the end. In any case, even if the final wage-career distribution is mostly a matter of luck rather than deliberate choices about education, it is unclear whether equalizing wages is going to be a more fair arrangement. First, it's impossible to speak about fairness in a system when outcomes are determined by chance (at least as long as you admit that people have different abilities). It may be likely that the rich are paid more than they deserve and the poor less, but it is equally likely that the rich paid less than they deserve and the poor more. This is a more nuanced philosophical point, and much more open to debate. Finally, I am not sure why anyone would object to inequality it itself. Consider this scenario. You're at the bar with your buddies, and Bill Gates walks in through the door. Obviously the distribution of wealth has become more unequal. But do you really feel worse off? Dimitriy V. Masterov
