Calculating the real value to society of different professions

[PiggyBank]

Quote from Momo Gaddafi:

by any legitimate standard bureaucrats and politicians would have to be at the absolute bottom. their value to society is not only nil but actually negative.

Well put

 

[piezoe]

Quote from sculptor66:

Holy crap.

Have you actually read that paper?

It's socialist propaganda at its best (or worst).

It is true that pay based on market price may not always reflect the true value of work.

But what is the alternative? The only alternative is redistributing income according to what government bureaucrats and politicans think is 'fair'. But it's impossible to objectively define 'fairness'. In the end, such thinking opens the door to income redistrubution either dictated by a) some more or less obscure ideologies or b) by corruption or its sibling, lobbyism.

No thanks.

I agree. However, we in the U.S. have already fallen victim to income redistribution "either dictated by a) some more or less obscure ideologies or b) by corruption or its sibling, lobbyism."

I believe that when there is free and unfettered competition in the market place wealth tends to be distributed fairly. Unfortunately in the "capitalist" U.S. the government has, in recent years, failed rather badly in it's proper role of preventing monopolies and cartels. In fact the government has been complicit in preventing a free and open market place, and has become the hand maiden of the regulated rather than the other way around. The result has been unfair and unreasonable concentration of wealth and a shrinking, in recent years, of the middle class with greater numbers barely above the arbitrary poverty line.

Consequently, if these defects in "capitalism" are ever to be successfully addressed, one could expect to see some redistribution of wealth from those at the upper end to those lower down in the wealth spectrum. If that happens, we will be certain to hear the cry of "socialism" coming from those who have benefited the most from the government-business partnership, when all that is really happening is a correction of past excesses.

 

[jueco2005]

Indeed.

Some people need to be taught basic supply and demand.

And the monopolistic aspect of our economy.

Thanks God this is a British paper. Who care about the British anyways??

Quote from sculptor66:

Holy crap.

Have you actually read that paper?

It's socialist propaganda at its best (or worst).

It is true that pay based on market price may not always reflect the true value of work.

But what is the alternative? The only alternative is redistributing income according to what government bureaucrats and politicans think is 'fair'. But it's impossible to objectively define 'fairness'. In the end, such thinking opens the door to income redistrubution either dictated by a) some more or less obscure ideologies or b) by corruption or its sibling, lobbyism.

No thanks.

 

[Lucrum]

Quote from sculptor66:

...It's socialist propaganda at its best (or worst)...

I was thinking the same thing while reading it; and I was trying to keep an open mind.

 

[Random.Capital]

Until we can actually agree on the purpose and meaning of life, the only logical position is that we are all more or less equally worthless.

 

[ElCubano]

Quote from Random.Capital:

Until we can actually agree on the purpose and meaning of life, the only logical position is that we are all more or less equally worthless.

not equally... Americans consume 33 times that of someone from india...