Why am I reminded of that scene in “A Vampire in Brooklyn” about how evil is good?
Anyway, I’m not advocating these people’s elimination or anything, just saying that any social disapproval that they get for not pulling their weight in society is probably well deserved.
I have always been proud that I have worked and supported myself completely since I was 16. I do not have children; but I like the fact that my tax dollars are paying the for children’s education. I want all children to have free and excellent education. I want to contribute to the society I live in and my taxes are a great way to do it. I believe that we who are capable have a responsibility to care for those who are not, regardless of the reason, without judgement.
The idea that teachers who are entrusted with society most precious commodity, children, are not paid more than bankers, ceo’s, politicians, people in the entertainment industry, etc; bothers me and I do what I can at the ballot box and in our town’s meetings.
I admit I believe there are people who receive Social Security benefits, Section 8, Welfare or other entitlement services who are scamming the system.
Do I think I am better than them? I do not think about it in that way.
I do not think I am “better” than anyone. More moral? More ethical? More honest? I suppose.
More valuable to society, no.
How do I know that the dead beat scammer isn’t going to give birth to the person who finds the cure for a disease. How do I know why they chose a life as a scammer.
I do not so I do not judge.
Great post. Bolded partly for 100% agreement! Education should be one of the ground pillars of a society, and it should be valued as such.
Variation on the “Parable of the Broken Window”. Economic value is not created by smashing all the windows in town and having the glassmaker replace them. Those resources could have gone to building something new instead of replacing something intentionally broken.
IOW, your contribution to society is offset by the destruction the polluters cause.
Because a) no one is advocating that everyone should be compensated the same amount, b) many “leftist billionaires” do write large checks and c), writing big checks does not solve what is a systematic problem.
I would not expect the artist to perform for me without compensating them, nor would I expect to be forced to compensate art for which I have no interest in.
Sure, everyone has value - but not infinite value, and - I’ll argue, not equal value.
Maybe I’m too utilitarian, but I think it quite a stretch to say the incompetent paraplegic infant is of as much value to society as just about anyone who is supporting themselves legally. To argue otherwise, you have to rely on some tortured argument about how they provide the opportunity to show compassion, blah blah blah.
Now I’m not saying “non-contributing” people should be killed - tho I am a strong supported of abortion rights and voluntary euthanasia. But it is worth debate to discuss the level of assistance to be provided to someone. I see this as a huge issue in the future, as increasing people demand increasing health care, vastly outweighing any contribution they’ve made or might reasonably be expected to make.
Another area is in education - how much should be spent on impaired children, with what aim? Again, I’m not suggesting killing or simply warehousing them. But I don’t know how the $ balance out.
It is fine to say we don’t know who will be the next Socrates. And line drawing is always nigh impossible. But at the extremes, it would require next to no effort to identify millions of folk who have ZERO chance of being the next Socrates.
And yeah, I’d support far higher taxes on most folk - including myself - to support any number of social programs I personally don’t foresee availing myself of.
C’mon now. If we weren’t wasting X man-hrs/year of productivity fixing counterproductive people those man-hrs could be used for real boosts in productivity. Without all these problems we’d probably have colonized at least Mars by now.
I only have a vague memory of that movie. But I’m not argung that evil is good. I’m just saying that “evil” isn’t necessarily worthless. Entire sectors of the economy are driven by “worthless” individuals. If we take those people out of the equation, does another industry step in to take their place? Or do we suddenly have a new class of worthless individuals to point and laugh at? I mean, think of how many young males have transformed themselves into respectable individuals because of the military. If we didn’t have a (perceived) need for the military, are we to assume that something else would make these young males into solid citizens? Why should we assume this?
If I had confidence that all “worthless” people were able-bodied and of sound mind, I would agree. But I’m guessing that the vast majority have some circumstance external to them that explains why they are the way they are. I think there are very few of us who are willfully lazy and nonproductive. So although I do feel negatively about the lazy, I always feel bad about it.
In societies with scarcity and not a surplus and you had to choose who to kill or let die how would one make that determination? The decision will be made implicitly or explicitly and how it’s made is a reflection of how that particular society values differing individuals.
I think the support for social programs is sort of related to an intuitive game theory styled calculation of potential gain for oneself as a hedge against below median outcomes.
Sure, this is a reasonable hypothesis.
Another hypothesis is that we’d be so content and satisfied with our circumstances that we wouldn’t be motivated to look for other worlds.
A lot of technological and medical advancements have been the by-product of war. War is certainly costly. But is it competely wasteful? Is there nothing good that comes out of it?
In biology we speak of hormesis, the phenomenon whereby a beneficial effect results from a low dose of a toxic substance. Could there also be social hormesis? Perhaps a society that tolerates a low dose of triflin’ behavior functions better than a more hardnose one. Perhaps having a neighbor or a relative that is functionally worthless motivates individuals to work harder than they otherwise would, if there were no cautionary tales to compare one’s self to. Perhaps knowing that being a “loser” isn’t the end of the world emboldens people to take more risks–both good ones and bad–than they would if the consequence of “loserdom” was state execution (or whatever extreme you what to concoct). Perhaps by valuing productivity more than any other attribute, you drive up suicide rates and the pravalence of mental illnesses, driving down productivity rates for everyone.
I don’t think we know that everything would be better if there were no slackers or criminals. We can guess that we would be better off, but we can guess a lot of things.
That could very well be true. It could be that disruptive influences push people off of local maxima.
What’s closest around the corner, pre- or post-scarcity?
No, it’s scraping by until you find a way to make ends meet, usually below the poverty-line, in systems designed as work. Getting a job should be work in it’s own right, and incredibly demanding work as well. Some of the websites I had to navigate trying to deal with my applications were almost impeneratbly difficult to navigate. And no one actually claimed to know how to use it, or being allowed to give instructions about how to use it. It’s the same people designing web-sites and proprietary student-platforms for schools. It is not a “game”, this is real life and real life consequences, for the most part. The bloat is in corrupt parts of the government-branch, and their minority of subservient leeches, that should deal with this.
Sometimes it seems more like a game, it’s understandable.
“The market” is based on surplus. The subjective value of watching someone play a sport (or perform music, or drama, or whatever) is based entirely on the fact that we have a food and labor surplus. We have the luxury of choosing to build gigantic stadiums, race tracks, etc etc because we have a “market” that exists above mere subsistence.
…As long as they had a surplus. When famine came, who do you think were the first to die?
I’m confused by this. We have art, literature, and other nice things because we can afford them. Food and shelter are non-negotiables, as you yourself observed. Who in their right mind is going to pursue art, literature, and philosophy when they have not secured food and water first?
Never heard of a starving artist? (Not our member here)
I would say we’re beyond the point where humanity is in danger, and we can and should support those who cannot contribute to society simply because they’re human and we’re human, and their condition may be ours. Call it self-preservation or morality, but there is no reason why some select group must contribute to society. The rest of us contribute plenty to allow some people the benefit of living on our dime
Schoolteachers make reliable, consistent money and have a high degree of job security. The amount paid to schoolteachers is a very large portion of any state or province’s total spending. Seems to me their utility is amply rewarded.
Of course a person is defined by how they fulfill the needs of other people. That’s how the universe works. Every single human being is a supporting character in the story of every other human being, and the sooner a person accepts that the sooner they’ll be happy with their lot in life.
I think we have an obligation to support those who can’t support themselves. We have NO obligation to support those who choose not to support themselves.
You are responsible for paying your own way in the world. If you don’t believe so, then you are saying that someone else is responsible for paying your way. That means you are demanding that others do extra work so that you don’t have to do any yourself. That’s morally reprehensible.
But if you are incapable of supporting yourself because of illness or other issues outside of your personal control, society has a role in helping to provide for you. Employable people who demand to be supported with the wealth of others instead of working for themselves are parasites.
Agreed on both points. As far as your first point, I think it is more precise to say that a schoolteacher’s pay is as proper as society deems it should be. Your kids end up learning their multiplication tables? The third grade teacher still shows up to teach? Then all is right with the world and that pay is adequate.
Can’t find anymore third grade teachers and the single complaint is pay is too low? Then raises are needed.
Your second point is even more apt. We can chat all we want about morality and hypothesize about who should get what and when and why, but in our daily lives, we give hundreds and thousands of people exactly what we believe they are worth to us, and they do the same in return.
When you paid $1.79 for that cup of coffee at the convenience store this morning, you didn’t give a thought about the health of the company, the worker’s wages, the coffee manufacturer’s bottom line, the deliver truck wear and tear, etc. You wanted coffee, they are offering, $1.79 seemed a fair amount of currency for you to give up for it.
Likewise, the store didn’t really give a shit about you other than to satisfy you so that you’ll keep coming back and paying $1.79. You didn’t pay $5 for the coffee to be nice and they didn’t give it to you for free to likewise be nice.You use them solely for what they do for you and they did the same.
Multiply that by almost everything else you do in life, and you will figure out what you are worth in real terms. The rest we can leave to the philosophers.
I think that even in the idealized case, the notion that in a free market economy the rewards that one reaps are laregely proportional to the extent which ones actions benefit society needs to be revise to instead say that in an idealized free market economy the rewards that one reaps are to which ones actions benefit those who have resources.
Take for example advertising executives. If I can convince 10% or the country that my employer’s brand of sugar water is superior to someone else’s brand of sugar water than I may well have increased the wealth of my employer sufficient to justify my million dollar bonus. Meanwhile an opposing companies advertising executive who undoes what I did is valuable enough to his employer to warrant his million dollar bonus. But it is clear that both of our actions can’t have benefited society to the extent of the amount we were paid since our actions canceled each other out.
Taken to a more extreme my services as a hit man in taking out a nosy reporter might be very valuable to my well heeled mob boss, but probably resulted in a net negative to society. On the other hand my equally valuable execution of a rival drug lord might be a net positive.
On the other end of the spectrum, it is not possible in a free economy to be well compensated for providing a very valuable service to those without resources. As a doctor in Liberia I may save hundreds of lives, but since the people whose lives I saved don’t have resources to value the benefit i provide as a much as billionaire would value the captain of his yacht.
I’ll fully admit that on the practical level capitalism has a lot going for it in terms of motivating people to provide services to others, but the problem comes when it takes on a moral dimension by those suggesting that economic value is by and large equivalent to societal value.
Sure, we should support those unable to support themselves, but at what level and for what purpose? How much health care do we provide the critically ill? How much education do we provide the profoundly impaired?
What form should this support take? Many folk object to the cutting of checks, but that is often done simply because it is administratively cheaper than providing rehab/training services.
Further, while I tend to agree with your sentiment regarding those who “choose” not to support themselves, I imagine there is at least some grey area where reasonable people might differ in their interpretation of free choice. Every day I deal with people who have had horrible upbringings. Abusive/ill/uneducated/absent/substance abusing family. Many/most of them have been diagnosed with some mental/emotional illness. Many of them had access to crappy schools. With that sort of upbringing, do they really “choose” to be un/underemployed in today’s economy?
Especially in a society where certain individuals receive millions/billions per year, I favor the near universal payment of some base level - maybe $10k or so - nearly universally, with incentives for recipients to seek employment.
Not to hijack, but the real issue with teacher salaries is that they aren’t set by a labor market; if you have a teaching degree, your options are very limited to either some kind of public school job, or a very much smaller pool of private positions.
And the public positions have salaries set by governmental agencies, not through competition with other jobs really… and that wage depression actually works against private school teachers, instead of the other way around. Why should a private school pay significantly more for a teacher, if their only other teaching option is to go work for the public school system?
Contrast this with college professorships- in fields of study where there’s no industrial/commercial demand, salaries are relatively low, while in ones where there’s competition with industry, salaries are surprisingly high. Engineering, business and science profs typically are paid quite a bit more than liberal arts and education professors.
But if you’re a kindergarten teacher, you’re kind of stuck- there’s demand, but there’s no competition salary-wise. In many states, there’s actually a MINIMUM salary that they can be paid, which isn’t something that’s done when there’s upward pressure on salaries due to competition.
However, this isn’t something nefarious on the part of states and school districts; it’s a natural consequence of having large public school systems as the primary employer of teachers.