I smite thee! ...The Diary of Nod

For Paul Graham, It's All About The Benjamins

In his essay, Mind the Gap, Paul Graham argues that the increasing disparity of income and wealth is a positive force, keeping the pace with widening levels of productivity. To Paul, wealth is an indication that what you do is of greater value to society and that value will lead to greater advancement for society, thereby increasing their ability to produce and gain wealth.

While that is true in some cases, he dismisses out of hand arguments against this universal statement. Wealth, as is relates to income, rises as society values your worth, as it relates to money. 100%. However, the value of a person's work is not wholly dependent upon what people will pay for it.

Capitalist societies often place monetary values in direct contrast to societal value--while the market may allow for the average baseball player to make 72 times as much as the average worker, what they offer society is not inherently 72 times more valuable. Baseball offers a diversion and that diversion is far less necessary or productive than a teacher, a firefighter, a police officer, or a soldier. These professions all have artificially low monetary values because they are usually paid by the government; even in private practice, it is extremely rare for anyone in these professions to make significantly more than their public counterparts. Further examples extend beyond the limits of my hard drive.

Separately, Paul limits to "a few", the amount of corruption and exploitation within governments and corporations. As we have seen in the last few years, businesses (and the governments partnered with them) will happily rape their customers to get a buck. Society is told that gasoline prices tripled because of supply problems due to acts of God and foreign wars, yet the companies selling that gasoline turn record profits. Governments hand out contracts to private industries without oversight or competition, but this is in no way related to previous or future employment of government officials. While many would argue this corruption and exploitation is no greater now than before, it is distinctly more blatant and runs contrary to Paul's statements.

And though the quality of life that the "middle class" enjoys today far exceeds that of 50 or 100 years ago, Paul creates a red herring in arguing that it's "absolute poverty you want to avoid, not relative poverty". By
that statement, we should all be exceedingly happy that we don't live in the third world. Relative poverty is a concern when the technology exists to improve that situation; definitely, a new "relative" poverty would be created, but why allow any kind of poverty that we can cure--isn't it better to advance society as far as it can go? We would have improved the situation of many to produce and thereby improved productivity of us all.

Isn't that what Paul wants?

Mine is not an argument over whether or not the work is "honorable" or "meaningful" or other subjective characteristics, only that money is not and never will be the sole definition of the societal worth of a person. An individual may offer society far more in terms of advancement without getting anything in return--many of our largest leaps forward have come from servants who worked diligently for the benefit of all even at the expense of themselves.

Money is not the only motivator and as such is not the only measure.

Paul is very right that work should be rewarded; it is ironic that he argues one should not be paid extra for painting his house with a toothbrush when, in discussing the extravagances some take to demonstrate their wealth, he gives the example of automobiles made by hand rather than machine. In that case, the effort is exactly what is being rewarded even though an inferior product may be produced.

People require incentives to excel. That so many people have viewed money as the only incentive is distressing and culminates with a poorer society in every other respect: happiness, culture, education, love. Many artists have died in the gutter because no one appreciated their worth until long after their bodies withered, but those artists chose to continue in their pursuits even when they lacked monetary wealth. They found compensation in something else and that should not be discounted and ignored.

It's never only been about money and we should fight any attempt to reduce it to such.

posted by Lachlan @ 6:40 AM