Author: Toby Morris
this post was submitted on 30 Jul 2024
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I absolutely agree with this comic, and in a lot of ways I was the kid on the left.
I struggle with the solution though. Isn't it the purpose of all life about giving your offspring a better chance?
When we give the kid on the right more opportunity, the left side will keep increasing their investment until it's lopsided in their favor again.
Maybe it's not about trying to reach some theoretical absolute equity, but keeping the distribution at a healthy balance so that one side is not completely locked out of the game. That's healthier for the whole community too since healthy competition ensures there's progress.
The solution cannot be only based on providing more opportunities to achieve equity of chance. To me, (financial/professional) success cannot and should not be the thing to strive for solely. We cannot all be attorneys and doctors and high achievers. We cannot expect a good life for all if everyone strives to be in the top 10% of society and this is the prerequisite for a good life and success, because by definition, this leaves 90% out.
So if you really want to have a good life for all, we need to stop the idea that you need to attain some artificial definition of professional success in order to have a good life, and provide a livable, worthy life for everyone - especially if they put in the time to work and contribute to society. If a person is working 40 hours a week, i.e. gives up 40 hours of their life and free time, why should it matter whether they work as a cashier, collect trash, or work as an attorney. In every case, they have a crucial role in society.
Well the first naive argument against that would be, why would anyone work hard to become an attorney if it doesn't pay more than anything else? Why spend years in school if it's not going to get you ahead?
I guess in the star trek universe you do it because you like it?
I want to believe maybe that might work?
These jobs should be rewarded more, but lower-skill jobs should still provide for a decent life, which they don't. Having to work two jobs is a failure of the system, not the individual.
Having worked in both low end and high end job I have two answers to that. The first is social status. No matter how much you earn, you will always be seen as more intelligent and more "worthy" because you have a higher status job. I think for a lot of people it's this admiration that would be enough. The second answer is physical reasons. My sister's back has been shit since she was 30 because of her endless standing in a barista job. Some jobs are insanely hard and just the comfort of being able to take a coffee break and a chat and sit at your desk is absolutely worth striving for. (There are people who enjoy manual and physical labor, but then again, why punish them financially, if they are willing to do the "harder" jobs?)
And yes, a third answer would be the urge to learn more and be more.engaged mentally. But wanting to do that and that having to do that to achieve success are two very different prerequisites.
Do you really think becoming an attorney is harder than, say, cleaning toilets 40h/week? I finished my master‘s degree in physics recently. Has it been stressful? Sure. But I could mostly choose my own rhythm to work, had a healthy balance of exercise and leisure, and had coffee breaks all the time. I know a carpenter and some farm workers, and I would have chosen uni over their work at any time. And chances are, once I get a „real job“ it will still be less hard than working on a field.
Wages are mostly a measure for how replaceable you are, not for how hard the work is.
It's fine to reward those who've spent more time and effort more - as long as we remember and acknowledge that we need everybody else to make society work too, and the baseline of even the lowliest workers is reasonably comfortable.
What method are you proposing to establish this?
I'm not a political and social science think tank, so I cannot propose anything. I doubt there is one method or approach to just establish this.
I mean I could tell you that I would "just" pay everyone basically the same, have "free" housing standardized for everyone and have them relocate to not further than 15 mins from their work, demolish single family houses, have students paid for studying, have parents paid for parenting, provide "free" necessities and basic foods, and get rid of bullshit jobs and companies that make products for empty consumption. But I mean, "just". That's obviously a thought experiment that happens by a complete layman and I doubt that I could win people for this, let alone in a democratic way.
That's fine, I am more asking a question to get you to think about method as well. Lots of people agree on goals, but methods of getting there are diverse, and many of them are fantasy, which makes the goals pointless.
People have unequal abilities and unequal needs. People shouldn't be paid the same, the whole of production should be in service of fulfilling the needs of the whole of society.
You'll find that many people agree with you on this, but if you can't achieve this electorally, your option becomes Revolutionary in nature.
I think you responded to the wrong comment, could that be?
I pasted the wrong block of text, sorry! Corrected it.
Yeap, but doesn’t mean you willfully or otherwise create a worse situation for someone else
Equity is an ideal we may never reach, but the point is we keep trying to reach it. There’s no such thing as a “healthy distribution” of exploitable working class.
The economic models built on exploitation of cheap labor are a relic of the past, and humanity does not need them to ensure future intellectual or cultural growth. We can have capitalism and social welfare together. We can even have Veblen goods without essentially making slaves of other people.
It's about humility and gratitude. Don't refuse to build on your advantages, just do what you can to pay it forward and outward.
A better chance at what? Becoming a member of the parasite class?