Pay people who do the worst (least desired) jobs the most and vice versa. Then we would hear about the $2 million contract the trash collector won. Movie stars would not make millions, the movie extras would. So the same people would get the glory as now, but all the other poor workers would get compensated monetarily.
-- smylly, Jan 05 2001

Sewer, Gas & Electric: The Public Works Trilogy http://www.amazon.c...dos/ASIN/0446606421
Damn funny book. Imagine Robert Anton Wilson and Neal Stephenson teaming up to take the piss out of Ayn Rand. [sirrobin, Jan 05 2001, last modified Oct 04 2004]

I'm not talking relative pay. I'm talking real dollars. Trash collectors do not make as much as CEOs. But which would you rather be. And if you've ever been an extra, you know it's incredibly tedious and boring and only those wishing to be stars (or those with lots of free time and no imagination) want to do it again. The question isn't, Who wants to be in movies (that's not a job). The question is, Who wants to an extra in a movie as opposed to who wants to be a leading man/woman.
-- smylly, Jan 05 2001


Wouldn't it be nice if people aspired to do things in their lives for reasons other than money?

I suppose life would be pretty crummy if there was no one willing to pick up your trash, which is about where this country is headed, because we all know how smart and better than that we are all even if it is our waste we're talking about someone else picking up.

And what if you happen to like picking up other people's trash and pride yourself on doing a good job of it. Maybe you even replace the lids, even though you know no one will ever thank you for it, and you'd get the same pay if you did or not.

Of course we'd all be pretty mad if saw our trash collectors sitting at a computer surfing the net while they were on the job! Whoo-hoo!
-- smylly, Jan 05 2001


Not really. As the football game plays in the background, I can't help but wonder how much skill it takes to weigh 350 lbs and go out and squash someone on a green field. Apparently, A LOT!!! And let's not forget the mindboggling genius of the men who throw balls through a hoop. I can see why these guys make so much more than a lot of CEOs not to mention trash collectors!
-- smylly, Jan 07 2001


If it's so easy, feel free to take the job yourself.
-- egnor, Jan 07 2001


Pay for jobs generally is affected by a number of factors:

- Desirability (less desirable == higher pay, what you describe)

- Skills required (and, related to that, the rarity of the required skills)

- Expense of training (jobs that requires a $200,000 education will pay more than those for which a high school diploma will suffice)

- Expected "working life" [a football player isn't going to be playing at age 50, so football players need to make enough to retire sooner]

As for people who throw balls through hoops, there's not much value in being 80% as skilled as the best athletes out there. Sports are very competitive, and only a relatively small number of atheletes are close enough to being "the best" to make themselves useful on a sports team. Since people with such skill are rare, they can demand premium pay.
-- supercat, Jan 08 2001


Exactly, that's what I'm talking about changing! We pay for what we value in this country: entertainment, materialism and more money. We don't apparently value teachers. If we paid teachers well, we might have really neat people wanting to teach (not that some really neat people don't still teach and suffer the wages, but why?). Is any entertainment figure (and sports are included) really worth a couple million times what a teacher is worth? Is our entertainment really more important than the minds our future generations? Maybe if football players weren't paid so much, parents wouldn't see that as the best hope for their child and turn into raving idiots at children's games.

And I've mentioned trash collectors and teachers, but there are many more important, but lowly paid jobs out there. I mean a lot of fire companies are still volunteer! It's hard to watch the game if your house burns down. I'd be willing to pay more taxes to have paid firefighters. I'm just posting an idea. I understand the way the system works (or doesn't work) now.
-- smylly, Jan 08 2001


Waugsqueke- You must live in heaven-happy trash collectors and well-paid teachers all in one place!

You have to admit it's contradictory to say you think teachers are worth more, but not more of your money. Since teacher salaries do come from the state we all have to pay their salaries. If they're worth more, you have to pay more. I think anyone who has to walk into a building with children who may or may not blow up the building or shoot you, deserves to be well-compensated.

I'm not saying anyone should turn down money. But it's a bad precedent and example for our children to have these outrageous salaries for borderline jobs. Americans have become so entitled all they ever want is more! More money that is. More stuff. More for appearance' sake. But please, less content. Who has time for content.

And the most ridiculous part is thinking for one moment that you don't contribute to those mega-million dollar contracts. You pay for it. And you know it. So why not spare some for the less well-paid.

And if you really think the job market is Darwinian, get real. There are plenty of payroll takers who are worth far less than they're making and they're not getting surpassed by superior workers.
-- smylly, Jan 08 2001


VeXaR's point neglects the fact that Ayn Rand spent most of her life with her head up her arse.

That view of capitalism would be entirely fair and OK if everyone started off at the same level. They do not. For way to many historical reasons to go into here (and many of them are because of goverment intervention on behalf of employers) people do not all start off equal. If Bill Gates was to procreate (shudder) and his kids were lazy talentless they would end up just as rich as their dad. In the meantime hard-working intelligent kids whose parents couldn't afford to educate them well even on minimum wage would end up just where their parents were.

Scrap the current system and start from scratch with a Rand-based system and within a year or two we'd be back where we are now. Even if no-one managed to stash some wealth someone would have gained un unfair advantage due to luck or geographical circumstances. After all that's how we got to where we are now. A whole bunch of people, unfettered competition and the accidental placement of resources.

I could go on for months about the problems with Rand (there's ample evidence that she didn't believe what she preached or, if she did, she cetainly didn't practice it) but I won't. For those interested in a morethorough (and fun) deconstruction of Randian (Randy?) economics try reading Matt Ruff's "Sewer, Gas and Electric."
-- sirrobin, Feb 16 2001


VeXaR: Then please explain how a completely privatized education system in a pure capitalist society makes schools better. Who pays? Where's the profit?

And yes, in a world where a large proportion of the population starves while a very few sit on more wealth than it would take to feed them all (and more than they could ever use themselves), I would agree with maximum wage laws. Whether or not a government should have the right to dictate how much an employer can pay, no private employer should be able to say "You may not earn enough to feed your family."
-- sirrobin, Feb 17 2001


This is getting fairly off-topic... I'll just say that since laissez-faire capitalism is the only system that bars initiatory force from human relationships, it is the only system I can morally support.
-- VeXaR, Feb 20 2001


Laissez-faire capitalism as it's practiced in the real world doesn't (and in fact can't) bar initiatory force, because that force has already happened. Instead it maintains the status quo, or in the worst cases tips the scales further by only defining some types of coercion as "force." (Not being able to eat leaves you just as dead as being shot.)
-- bookworm, Feb 20 2001


This has wandered a little off topic so it's time for a closing statement before the jury retires.

Rand's theories fall down in exactly the same way that Marx's do: They have to be implemented by humans. Until the human urge to fuck the other guy over for a bigger share of the loot can be eliminated Marxist-Leninist Communism and Randian-Objectivist Capitalism will both fall down in an ugly heap if put into practice.
-- sirrobin, Feb 20 2001


Note it's the job of the garbage collectors to pick up either the Libertarian or Communist ugly heap - therefore we should pay them more money ...
-- Aristotle, Feb 20 2001


"Laissez-faire capitalism as it's practiced in the real world..."

I wish it were! Unfortunately, this is not the case.

This is too off-topic to warrant further discussion.
-- VeXaR, Feb 23 2001



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