Forum Post: Poor Farmer, Rich Lawyer
Posted 11 years ago on July 7, 2012, 12:24 a.m. EST by brosefstalin
(139)
from Wantagh, NY
This content is user submitted and not an official statement
I was just listening to a business entrepreneur encourage listeners to "pursue their passions." But I wonder, why do we reward some passions more than others?
Why does the man passionate about farming not make as much as the man passionate about advertising? Both are following their passions, yet one makes more than the other. Why? We need food to eat, but we can't eat advertisements.
Why does the woman who pursues her passion to teach struggle to get by when the woman who is passionate about being a supermodel is rewarded so richly? Why? We need someone to teach our kids how to read and write. Will the supermodel teach them?
Why must the dishwasher who cleans dishes with all his heart live on subsistence while the corporate lawyer makes away with millions? Both pursued their passions, correct? Why the discrepancy in value? We all need clean dishes, correct? We would get sick otherwise.
Why must the mother who raises our children be dependent on her husband's income in order to survive? Why must the husband be an accountant when his passion was farming all along?
I just want to understand why we value certain passions more than others. Some people aren't born passionate about business or law, yet those people get rewarded so much more than someone passionate about being a fireman or garbage man or being a cashier.
Your argument is valid: all jobs are equally necessary and collectively built upon and used. The dishwasher, house mother, carpenter, sales manager, general manager, CEO are all necessary to the system and interdependent.
In The State and Revolution Lenin, when discussing the operation of the Paris Commune, did not deny the necessity of managers, accountants, lawyers, cooks, bottle washers. He believed they were all part of a collective, interlocked system, so all should be paid equally with rewards for the most productive and most beneficial to society in general.
Thank you. I certainly came across as antagonistic to CEOs and managers, but it's correct that in this society all these jobs are necessary.
If CEOs earn about 500 times what the average worker earns you should be antagonistic toward them. We should all oppose such an inequality of earnings; each worker, from janitor to CEO, contributes equally to the matrix of the system.
The only way a CEO can "merit" such a great difference in earnings is by exploiting workers, who provide the labor, yet that person cannot be in his/her position without the collective effort of all workers.
That's why all workers from the "lowest to the highest" should receive equal pay: all contribute equally to the overall effectiveness of the system; and that system is based on the collective effort of all workers, who have preceeded the current generation as well as those who toil right now, at this moment.
Obviously, rewards should exist for those who contribute the most, or bear more responsibility, but the rewards don't have to be monetary. They can be as simple as public recognition, or special vacations, or a front-row seat at a sporting event.
The abolition of income inequality promises a better society, in which all receive basic needs, and the best of the workers can look forward to recognition and rewards for their superior abilities and greater contributions.
Have you looked at unemployment rates among lawyers lately? When the little guy is being exploited or ripped off or abused by some giant company or government agency, who does he call? Does he call a farmer, a dishwasher, or maybe a janitor? Nope, he calls a lawyer. So great, let's buy into conservative anti-lawyer gibberish, while we're at it, let's buy into conservative anti-intellectual gibberish, yup, what we need is more stupidity, less people who are able to defend our civil rights, etc. Let's become like the tea party, stupid people, unite against all those smart bastards. They don't even believe in our celestial tea pot, so what do they know? (duh) :)
When you need your lettuce grown, do you call a lawyer? When you need the dishes washed in the restaurant you dine in, do you call a lawyer? When you need the bathrooms cleaned in the middle school your children go to, do you call a lawyer?
I'm not sure why you went on that rant about anti-intellectualism. I'm not sure how that factored into our discussion.
Fair enough, why are [let's say] people with graduate degrees rewarded more than those without graduate degrees (apply the same logic to people with bachelor degrees vs. people without . . . and so on)? Well, so much should be obvious, highly educated people are rarer than people who can wash dishes--->which is pretty much everyone, and so it's simply supply and demand.
There is nothing illogical in your argument. But is a person, a human life, really nothing more than a function of supply and demand to a market. If true, then a person's life carries no more weight in our evaluations than would the evaluation of two inanimate objects - like say, a plentifully found hammer and a rocket ship. How can we use the same cold reasoning to compare people that we would use to compare inanimate objects? It seems a bit...inhuman.
Well, sure, it can be viewed in this way. I mean, did hunter gatherer tribes value people with superior tool making talent, versus the one of many who was capable of participating in the hunt (which may have included all able bodied males)? I'm not an anthropologist, so I can't answer this question definitively (although I suspect they may not have an answer to this question either), but it makes sense right?
If you think about it ... this is a form of collectivism. It would be more detrimental to the group if they lost the toolmaker versus losing one of their many able hunters. It serves the group better to have good tool makers, it reduces casualties incurred during hunts, it makes food preparation more efficient (and therefore reduces starvation), etc. etc.
Yes, it can probably be described as a cold/calculating way of thinking, but this is part of an intuitive, almost autonomic thought process (so I don't think most humans would view this as cold or calculating or dispassionate or inhumane ... and even though the literary genius or poet may object to this dynamic, he would still have to concede its utility).
The only modification anarchist philosophy would make to this dynamic is not really much of a modification. It would simply take the view that a person with extraordinary abilities has somewhat of a duty to serve the group, and use his or her abilities to benefit the group (but this isn't so much unique to anarchist philosophy, the maxim "to whom much is given, much is expected" has been around for a very long time, and the general idea behind it, probably for much longer).
Okay, so we might say that someone like a scientist has a moral obligation to serve the best interests of humanity, but this is only one part of the equation, and even assuming all highly intelligent people adopted this view, will the average person no longer value rare/extraordinary talent more than average capabilities? It wouldn't be in the groups interest to do so, and then add in the dynamic of competing groups, and it's fairly clear that valuing extraordinary talent is in societies self-interest (it facilitates survival, makes life less brutish, etc.). Ideally, we'd want a society where those with extraordinary talent only have incentive to serve society at large (where a non-coercive society becomes possible, since coercion creates resentment, resentment demoralizes, and ultimately reduces allegiance to society, and the slippery slope leads us right back to square one).
Using this primitive example does not come close to capturing the complexities of today's modern world. If the superior tool maker invents a new hunting tool that replaces the hunter all together, then what becomes the value of the hunter now that these people are no longer required to hunt. What becomes their new role in the tribe? How do they adapt to these changing conditions? Do the expendable hunters get kicked out of the tribe for not doing anything any more? Does everyone in the tribe benefit from this advancement or does only the tool maker benefit?
And what if this rare/extraordinary talent actually becomes a detriment to society because it no longer adds any real value to the tribe - say if the talent is used to manipulate things for their own selfish gain - many argue that Wall Street adds no real value to society and is actually detrimental to the well being of our economy - same could be said of dirty energy tycoons.
Right, and I agree with this analysis. A truly participatory/collaborative society should inspire everyone to make a contribution, and continually adapt themselves to changing circumstances. It's also true that it's very difficult to compare primitive tribes to modern society (modern society is much more densely populated, we have incredible technology, etc.). Nevertheless, the interest in examining primitive tribes, or attempting a thought experiment (which tries to imagine the social dynamics in these tribes), is of interest, because it tries to understand human nature at a more fundamental level (stripping away the influence of factors like technology). I guess it's valid to wonder how relevant this analysis is (and I also question its value).
It is our fundamental human nature to judge for ourselves. This common ability to judge, not unique to any individual, is what drives us each to have different understandings of the world around us.
What I find repulsive, you may find attractive. What I find offensive, you may find humorous. What I find scary, you may find thrilling. What I find unfair, you may find suitable. Where I find art, you may find trash. What I find valuable, you may find worthless.
It is this fundamental aspect of our psyches to view the world in our own manner that makes each of us unique and, I daresay, extraordinary.
This is not to say all judgments are equal and always benefit society, some judgments do more harm than good,and vice versa. This fundamental element of human judgment is where we must start if we are to make a better world - by using better judgment, no.......extraordinarily better judgment.....which cares to value the unique experience of each human life and render none to the mercy of cold calculating thinking.
I would suggest that your philosophy regarding how a society should work is actually anti-collectivist.
The person with an extraordinary talent can only pursue this talent if the society nurtures him. He NEEDS the farmers, the distributors , cooks and cashiers so that he can properly receive food. He NEEDS teachers to grant him the basic groundwork for his intellect. He NEEDS the construction worker to build his college dorm so he can live at school. He NEEDS the janitor to clean his school bathroom.
If he didn't have any of these things, he would never be able to pursue his passion because he'd be too busy growing his own food, picking it, buying seeds, cleaning his bathroom, building his home, etc, so that he'd never be able to pick up that physics textbook.
The extraordinary can't exist without the ordinary. It absolutely requires it. If you took away the ordinary souls, the extraordinary person could not exist. In this sense, we should reward everyone equally, because the ordinary farmer helped make the extraordinary scientist.
Yeah, but I was only responding to your inquiry, not enumerating my personal philosophy.
So is what you have thus far written your opinion or your opinion about what other people might think?
I'm less certain. I think ideally we would have a world where everyone was content in terms of material possessions, and we'd find much more fulfilling ways to enrich ourselves. At the same time, this is truly an untested idea, and to make it worse, we can't really be sure to what extent this corresponds with human nature. I've heard plenty of arguments that would take issue with this contention (from anarchists and even one or two anarchist anthropologists), but the mainstream view among anthropologists is that yes, within a tribe, we see egalitarianism, but between members of different tribes (and between tribes as collective units), this attribute is (in general) absent. What are the implications of this for anarchist philosophy? I think it's probably unknown (so it requires testing).
This is why I prefer the gradualism of say a Pierre Proudhon (although even the gradualism of Pierre Proudhon would be considered radical in today's corporate media America).
Even Marx thought revolution would happen gradually.
I suppose the solution might be for us globally to think of ourselves tribally. Yet such a concept could never occur so long as we "value" (in terms of money) jobs differently.
I used to ask who will we miss first, bankers or garbage-men, if they all disappeared tomorrow? Inspired by the question I'll ask instead, if bankers were paid the same as garbage-men, would they all choose homelessness and death rather than work for so little and merely survive?
For more on dysfunctional economy and culture see: How Does That Work? https://www.createspace.com/3852916
We don't reward or value passions. No one really cares if a valued product or service is provided with passion or not. So long as a product or service meets the desires of the purchasers, it's valued. The more that general desire for a product or service is fulfilled, the more it is valued. People are willing to pay for what they want and people are willing to sell their products, services, and labor, for what others are willing to pay them no matter how little that may be. If it's too little, the product, service, or labor, simply won't be sold. If the price is too high, the product, service, or labor, simply won't be bought.
If the vast majority of dishwashers valued their own labor more than what people offered them to the point of not working for less, they would either get paid more or there would no longer be any dishwashers. The same is true for all other occupations, passion or not.
The mother who raises our children must be dependent on her husband's income in order to survive simply because SHE DOESN'T HAVE A PAYING JOB. Parenting for a mother or a father is not a paying job. It never has been, it never shall be, nor should it be. One does not become a parent to get paid. Mother's who want to get paid, get jobs.
I think you know quite well "WHY" some are rewarded more than others. Who says the farmer is rewarded less than the advertising exec. If the farmer is smart and efficient, he makes far more than the adman.
The supermodel has freakish good looks which is rare and highly valued and has been highly valued since the dawn of man. Her beauty is rare and scarce. Teaching is not a rare talent, there are thousands and thousands of teachers and maybe 20 supermodels.
Anyone can wash dishes. anyone. In fact we now have machines that wash dishes better than a man. Not everyone takes the time to go to college, get exceptional grades, go to a top law school and learn to argue cases better than others. This comparison is your balm for the masses when in fact you know exactly why a dishwasher has little value.
The husband can be a farmer, there is nothing stopping him. Anyone can be a cashier, machines do most of the work now anyway.
I'm not saying teaching dish-washing is a difficult job, I'm saying that what if someone is born with a passion for dish washing. Some people are born passionate about the law, and some people just aren't born with that passion.
born with a passion for dishwashing?
That isnt at all what you asked. Dont lie when your words are in black and white. You asked why they are valued more. I answered.
But I think you completely missed the point of this discussion. We need teachers, farmers, and cashiers. The system can't possibly work at present without them. The system could actually work without supermodels.
models, model couture clothing which is photographed for magazines which sell ad space, which brings in money as do magazine subscriptions. the couture clothing trends are copied and mass marketed and are sold in all different priced stores. jobs are created, money is made on all sides.
There is no shortage of teachers, farmers, or cashiers. Your OP never mentions shortage at all. It mentions low income, only. Plus you dont know much about farming, it a VERY lucrative career. Farmland is at an extreme value, because famers do so well financially.
We dont need cashiers at all. Most grocery stores have self serve aisles. Cashiers should have low wages.
Farmers make most of their money off the farm. In fact most take a loss on farm income, with minus $2,000 being the median. Not lucrative at all.
http://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/farm-economy/farm-household-well-being/farm-household-income.aspx
http://seekerblog.com/2012/06/17/u-s-food-production-is-controlled-by-the-giant-corporations-right/
You are correct, I never mentioned the relationship between abundance of type of worker and pay. And it's also not a question of whether or not we need cashiers, or farmers, or supermodels (we truly do need cashiers more than we need supermodels, though, but that's completely beyond the point).
The question I had was provoked by the statement made by the entrepreneur who said "Pursue your passion." We are all passionate about different things. So my question was, what of the inherent monetary hindrance one receives for being passionate about teaching vs. being passionate about business or corporate law? If I pursue my passion to be a postal worker, then I am relatively punished in my income by a society that decides the man who pursues his passion in investment banking should be rewarded more.
Should we compensate people for these natural handicaps? Are some passions truly worthier than others?
you're arguing with a twit.
on a more humble scale then niphtrique I washed dishes years age (actually decades) and I can assure you the one thing I never did was put my heart into it.
don't confuse passion with just a job
Washing dishes wasn't YOUR passion. Just like how being a farmer wasn't my grandfather's passion, even though he was born into a farming family.
There are a lot of engineers who because of the monetary incentives confuse that job with their "passion."
If someone never had the opportunity to learn at least rudimentary physics, a little biology, chemistry, maybe some calculus & statistics, and chooses to become a farmer or a dish washer or whatever, then we might say they're really following their passion. After all, what does it even mean to have a poorly informed passion? The poorly informed person simply has a smaller menu of choices to select from, when trying to figure out what they're passionate about. This doesn't mean that unless we have access to exhaustive knowledge (i.e. we somehow become an omniscient species), we can't be passionate about things, of course we can, but reality is often a matter of degree, versus the sort of pseudo-gibberish that peculates from absolutist and purist ideologies.
You're merely denigrating labor-based professions, which is exactly what business-people have been doing.
What if there really are people out there passionate about farming and have never had interest in practicing corporate law. Philosophically, why should someone effectively be punished for pursuing their passion in auto-mechanics or teaching instead of business or corporate law?
Some people are just born lucky in that their interests are highly valued by people with money; whereas some people are born unlucky in that their inherent passions lay in something we presume to be only for the bottom feeders.
So no perks for hard work & intellectual brilliance? It's not that people put themselves through the intellectual torture of something like a PhD program purely for money, but they would like to be upper middle class (like the top 10 or 20%) :)
Considering the current environment of intellectuals and academics (who helped cause this economic mess) I'd suggest that there are too many PhD's and the like.
Einstein had certain views about this. He never considered himself "intellectually brilliant," but merely a person who was very very curious. I would rather have people like that as academics rather than people who pursue it so they can be comfortably in the upper-middle class.
People only put themselves through intellectual torture when they are doing something they don't want to do. For me, reading textbooks on molecular biology is not torturous because I'm simply curious enough about it to get joy from it. It is not hard work. I am not in a PhD program, nor do I wish to be. I don't need a degree to make me feel intellectually superior than my peers.
In my perfect world, people merely do things out of passion to do the right thing and pursue the right virtues.
Ummm, how many intellectuals and academics were among the banksters? I mean ... that's a little unfair isn't it (in all my protests, meetings, and so on--with occupy--I've never heard anyone blame academics for the 2008 banking collapse)? But anyway, yeah, I'm the same way, studied science because I'm genuinely interested in it, but still, learning science and advanced mathematics is hard work (assuming you do it the conventional way, in a formal college program).
Moreover, I don't let myself get bogged down in the quagmire of trying to discern motives, classifying people according to stereotypical categorizations, etc. (it seems like a bitter approach to life).
The bankers are largely taught by the ivory elite, holding business degrees from Yale, Harvard, Columbia, etc. Mitt Romney has multiple degrees from Harvard. Obama has a law degree from Harvard. Bush was a Bulldog from Yale.
Beyond that, academic economists have written articles promoting derivatives and investment in Iceland (which we all know failed extraordinarily). Watching the film "Inside Job" would elucidate this information pretty well, though you and I will argue that this film is not the definitive bible on this subject:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8lHvTKzfu8Q
I'm not sure why you'd think it's a bitter approach to life to think about the question of motivation (unless you'd like to think yourself above humanity). It's a question that's concerned philosophers from Buddha and Jesus to Kant, Emerson, William James, John Dewey, Neil Postman. Why would you want to ignore important considerations like what the purpose of motivation is?
After all, if your purpose to become an academic is monetary, then it is far easier to become corrupt and rely on gifts from corporations.
Keep in mind, we're not talking about the type of motive that's easily discernible (like say, guy bought a million dollar insurance policy just before his wife was found floating in the local river). We're talking about the type of motive that's highly subjective, not quantifiable, and therefore, the inquiry becomes arbitrary. Sometimes motive becomes apparent, but often we use crude tools like stereotypes (or maybe anecdotal experiences) to discern motive.
Right, we're NOT talking about the legal definition of a motive (though, I would argue that such legal observations of motivation don't in any way touch the root of man's heart). In any case, it's perhaps distracting us to something more important: that there are reputable sources critical of the academic institutions for having provided the intellectual lubrication on the hinges of the door to deregulation, which corrupted our system and made prudence in investment and economic stability a quality to be thrown out.
When you're trying to figure if X killed Y, you don't necessarily need to reach into the root of a man's heart. But anyway, yeah I suppose, academic economists have been sort of a cheering section for all this shit, but that's only a small slice of academia. I think perhaps most academics are left of center, and share many of the same complaints you or I have (shit, I've spent so much time in college, I should be an expert on this subject :)).
Actually, my experience in college is perhaps that the academic establishment is traditionally conservative. Think about how much Einstein was attacked by the academic institutions when he first displayed his theories. Think of how the academics resisted the Impressionists in France. Sure, I don't think they're conservative like Rick Perry is. But, of course, I consider the Democrats to be pretty conservative anyway.
In my personal experience, and I can only detail this from an Arts perspective, academia is behind the times. I could give you sources that elaborate on the dismal state of arts education in college--because of how behind the times the thinking is--but that doesn't directly relate to politics.
I agree with your statement regarding if X killed Y, but it's rare that in a legal setting the true motivation is ever determined. You find, "X needed money from Y," but does that really focus on why X needed money? Why did X value money so much? Who taught him that? The legal assessment of motivation really only digs upon the surface of what has happened (and is one of the reasons I am strongly anti-prison).
Well, I mean, with respect to your last point (motive), it boils down to the question of how many excuses will we grant to would be killers? In other words, the way the law is structured, the only available defenses to intentional homicide are justification (like self defense, heat of the moment, etc.) or insanity. A judge can consider mitigating circumstances in sentencing (although many state statutes now impose minimum sentencing requirements, which takes away considerable discretion from judges), but at the end of the day, how many excuses will we grant to a killer?
I will provide you with an answer on your question. The real cause of the problems lies in the nature of our money system in which interest on money is charged. Interest causes wealth to concentrate as the poor pay interest to the rich. Interest can therefore be seen as a tax on poverty to the benefit of the rich. The following example demonstrates this and also that interest on money is unsustainable and leads to crisis:
If someone brought a 1/10 oz gold coin to the bank in the year 1 AD, and the money remained there until the year 2000 AD, collecting a yearly interest of 4%, the amount of gold in the account would have been 3.6 * 10^31 kilogramme of gold weighing 6,000,000 times the complete mass of the Earth.
If interest is charged on a limited scale or over a short timeframe then those problems do not surface. Interest is an insidious process. Over time it is inescapable that it reduces large numbers of people to a state of servitude to the money lenders. This is a long term development that transcends the life span of a human. Interest is the main reason why a number of civilisations have failed and why Western civilisation is about to fail. Therefore all interest is usury and the current financial system is a usury financial system.
The usury economic system favours large scale operations. During the usury economic cycle useful capital is replaced by useless capital. This works as follows:
This cycle is repeated again and again so with usury large scale operations have the advantage. The usury economic cycle caused the division of labour to go further than it otherwise would have done. The effect of the usury economic cycle favouring large scale operations is amplified by the free flow of capital and free trade as this created a competition of everybody against everybody on a world wide scale. As a consequence dependencies have escalated and people have become less self sufficient. In this way "the system" has been created. Before the middle of the twentieth century most people lived in villages that were largely self dependent. Henceforth more and more people live in cities and societies have become more complex than they would have been without usury.
The functioning of markets is perverted by cycles of leverage and liquidation. During the boom phase useless capital is created. During the bust phase useful capital is destroyed. As less and less people can have an income from real economic output, productive jobs have been replaced by service sector jobs that produce nothing but still consume energy and natural resources. Energy and natural resources are often irreplaceable. Therefore the usury economic cycle makes the economy less efficient.
http://www.naturalmoney.org/full-theory.html
Ending usury and introducing local currencies will create a completely different situation:
http://www.naturalmoney.org/organisation.html
Society decides what jobs provide the most benefit and pays accordingly. The problem is not with the farmer, the problem is with our society.
I never understood the do what you love and you will never work a day in your life. Many of life's tasks are performed out of necessity, not pleasure or passion. People don't grow up dreaming of becoming a dishwasher, they dream of being a movie star or jet fighter pilot or whatever. Okay, there are probably exceptions, but in general, I believe this is true in the majority of cases.
Isn't this really a question of who does the drudgery work in society vs those that do privileged work. Isn't this really another aspect of class-ism. The thinking goes like this - any one can perform drudgery work, and since no one is dying to do the drudgery work, it gets a low value on the monetary compensation scale. In effect, the modern social structure is designed to treat people who do drudgery work as inferior, unequal beings: talentless, lazy, irresponsible,etc. Basically hacks who could not pull themselves up out of doing drudgery work and secure more privileged work.
But it is kind of a catch 22, just because drudgery work is admittedly less glamorous, it does not render it, at all , less vital to society. On the contrary, it is absolutely vital and necessary for drudgery work to be performed before it is even possible to pursue more privileged work. Life would not be possible at all without taking care of the vital necessities first. The burger flipper drudges through flipping patties all day long to keep people fed so they can do more privileged work. It is by having others perform the vital necessary work which allows a scientist time to pursue his passions to understand the secrets of the universe.
If anything, our societal priorities seem backwards to me. We should first reward vital work and then look to reward privileges next. The privileged should be more grateful and thankful of the sacrifices of those hacks who make everybody else's lives easier and better, affording them with such luxurious opportunities - to fly jet planes or star in a movie.