I'm mostly in favour of (d). Jack's derived enjoyment and therefore utility from a win.
I think taxation should be proportional, but by utility, which leads to a progressive scheme. "Good fortune" monetarily mostly comes down to luck, and whilst good luck is something to be celebrated, I'd personally be happy with the luck and don't look to benefit beyond that. I'm also quite prepared to impose that worldview on others.
Incidentally, (b) doesn't seem particularly unfair to me, but I'd typically plump for (d).
Yes, but having had a lazy lunch in the sun with a larger cider than I'd anticipated it would be, I'm not sure how to compute it. So, possibly not
( ... )
We don't live in a world of people who think like you though. If we did, there would be much fewer flatscreen TVs, posh restaurants, and parks would be much busier on sunny weekday afternoons.
That kind of sounds lovely, but I think I like my tech too much to stop rewarding people who work hard making new tech so much.
Here's the thing. In many cases, making new tech is its own reward. It's obliquely what I do for a living (not enough of it these days, mind you). I'd do it for free, and more, if income wasn't an issue.
I went to a Mark Thomas gig recently, and he he said something I found quite interesting on the subject of the maximum wage. He proposed that the salary of a CEO of a private company be linked to a multiplier of the average wage of all the employees in their company. He also proposed that public servants be linked to the average wage of citizens of the country they governed. I thought that was pretty cool.
How would you grade jobs according to their shittyness?
I'd like to add that the concept seemed pretty cool to me. I'm not convinced that the majority of people would do well under a society where the extremes of a risk/reward system was removed. I'm still making my mind up about that.
I think the majority of people don't actually benefit from a society with the extremes of a risk/reward system: that catches outliers, mostly. Most people are stuck in the middle.
It takes a certain kind of personality to want to be an employer. It's a lot of hard work. Some people get a kick out of that; when I look around, I can't help but think that I'd be prepared to live in a world where only the people who did it for the love of it (rather than the yachts) carried on doing so.
Ironically, people might claim that we _already_ grade jobs according to their shittyness, because if we didn't pay enough for people to do them, they wouldn't get done. And yet that seems at odds with the general reward structure we have: yes, creating employment is currently a necessity, because that's the way our society works. I like the MT proposal.
WRT r/r: No, it's the extremes that motivate. Fear/desire.
Some people like working hard. I don't know many people who would be happy without a job they're passionate about. Personally, I'd go insane with boredom.
And do we? I'd argue that we don't. I think we reward intellectual and physical work far more highly than we reward emotional work, for example. I would even go so far as to argue that that could be a gender thing.
And I'd recommend his recent book. He's a comedian, but the points he raises are interesting. If you're Bristol based, he's actually putting forward a candidate.
I agree, wrt the current grading of jobs and reward; and your point about a gender divide is well made.
(I think what we really do is try to sucker people in then reduce what we pay them, relying on inertia and the cost to them (and fear) of fucking off and going elsewhere to keep them in post.)
Who is we? I agree that inertia and fear are strong motivations to settle for the status quo. Most people think have too much to lose if change goes wrong.
And if you're interested in gender and job 'grading', you should read some of Dr Sarah Dyer's papers. She's done some really interesting work about care, labour and gender. I used to edit them back in the day :)
I think taxation should be proportional, but by utility, which leads to a progressive scheme. "Good fortune" monetarily mostly comes down to luck, and whilst good luck is something to be celebrated, I'd personally be happy with the luck and don't look to benefit beyond that. I'm also quite prepared to impose that worldview on others.
Incidentally, (b) doesn't seem particularly unfair to me, but I'd typically plump for (d).
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Does your answer change if Jack is there a week, playing 24/7, and Dave turns up and plays for an afternoon?
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We don't live in a world of people who think like you though. If we did, there would be much fewer flatscreen TVs, posh restaurants, and parks would be much busier on sunny weekday afternoons.
That kind of sounds lovely, but I think I like my tech too much to stop rewarding people who work hard making new tech so much.
Reply
Reply
How would you grade jobs according to their shittyness?
Reply
Reply
It takes a certain kind of personality to want to be an employer. It's a lot of hard work. Some people get a kick out of that; when I look around, I can't help but think that I'd be prepared to live in a world where only the people who did it for the love of it (rather than the yachts) carried on doing so.
Ironically, people might claim that we _already_ grade jobs according to their shittyness, because if we didn't pay enough for people to do them, they wouldn't get done. And yet that seems at odds with the general reward structure we have: yes, creating employment is currently a necessity, because that's the way our society works. I like the MT proposal.
Reply
Some people like working hard. I don't know many people who would be happy without a job they're passionate about. Personally, I'd go insane with boredom.
And do we? I'd argue that we don't. I think we reward intellectual and physical work far more highly than we reward emotional work, for example. I would even go so far as to argue that that could be a gender thing.
And I'd recommend his recent book. He's a comedian, but the points he raises are interesting. If you're Bristol based, he's actually putting forward a candidate.
Reply
(I think what we really do is try to sucker people in then reduce what we pay them, relying on inertia and the cost to them (and fear) of fucking off and going elsewhere to keep them in post.)
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And if you're interested in gender and job 'grading', you should read some of Dr Sarah Dyer's papers. She's done some really interesting work about care, labour and gender. I used to edit them back in the day :)
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