On Wed, 13 Oct 2004 13:58:25 -0600, Sasha Pachev <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Ok, a somewhat off-topic post. A subject that has been on my mind lately. > It appears that the law that the amount of pay is inversely proportionate to the > usefulness of the labor you perform holds very well in those examples. So > something is definitely wrong with our economy, but is more than recession, lack > of jobs, or high fuel prices. Something is REALLY wrong. Being skillful in > drawing public attention is worth millions, while actually making things happen > is worth close to survival minimum. With two languages mixed in my head, I > cannot remember if this carries into English, but in Russian they say that an > empty barrel makes a lot of noise :-)
How about doctors? I would argue that the service a doctor provides is roughly comparable in importance to that of a teacher. Doctors may have an easier schedule a few years after entering the work force, but their education and the first few years of practice is an order of magnitude harder than getting a teaching certificate. Not to mention that staying current in the field is much harder in medicine than it is education. In the end, I think it comes out in the wash making the two jobs roughly equivalent in difficulty over a lifetime. So obviously neither importance nor difficulty are factors in pay. The answer is simple: economies of scale. A good teacher can only handle approximately 30 students. A good doctor can have hundreds of patients. An entertainer (and that's what most people in politics are these days) can handle audiences in the tens of thousands at once and provide services to millions with the aid of technology. Hence, the person who is able to serve the most people makes the most money. It's just the way our economy works. People have tried to create more "fair" systems, paying scientists, doctors, and teachers the same thing. They were resounding failures. Most people are at least a little corrupt. Almost everyone is self-interested. No system that doesn't recognize that can stand a chance until second coming. -- Stuart Jansen "The gods do not protect fools. Fools are protected by more capable fools." - Larry Niven, Ringworld ____________________ BYU Unix Users Group http://uug.byu.edu/ ___________________________________________________________________ List Info: http://uug.byu.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/uug-list
