The same wage issue

[RedGuerilla]

I have recently got into a heated debate with a few brainwashed cappies and as it stretched on they resorted to the old "why should a janitor be paid the same as a doctor" argument and also added that "why doesn't everyone just become a janitor and bother with studying and working to be a doctor?"

Just asking your opinions on this matter and what you would say?

[Tablo]

Well, the reason is that you cannot actually measure the value of a person's contribution to society in a fair way to begin with. We would need a means to measure how much effort a person put forward, the physical value of their contribution, and the time invested. All of these are near impossible to measure with the exception of the times invested, thus why wages exist now and would exist in transition to communism.

Also, janitors are super important. If they weren't cleaning public places and hospitals then disease would run rampant in our cities so I would argue they are just as important as doctors.

Cool thing about communism is it allows you to contribute what you are capable of contributing while consuming all that you would need. :cool:

[Q]

A better question would be why it would be fair to have the janitor and the bank salesman have the same wage.

But of course, all bank salesmen will have to find another job anyway in socialism :)

Anyway, under socialism, when money relations still exist, you'll remain within an inequal context. There are no flatwages. The inequality will be way less than what we have now, but only when we'll be able to overcome money relations, under communism, can we talk about real equality. In that sense it of course is silly to talk about wages anyhow as "work" as a social institution wouldn't exist anymore.

[graymouser]

Actually, isn't it fairly well proven that most people who become doctors do so out of a very strong personal desire to be doctors and help people? I mean, Cuba (despite my reservations about it politically), which doesn't pay exorbitant wages to its doctors, has a downright excellent medical training program and doesn't have trouble finding people for it. Socialist society will have ways of actually taking idealistic young medical students who genuinely want to help people, training them, giving them a decent living, and not crushing them under the cynicism caused by having to repay enormous student loans and have their decisions second-guessed by insurance companies.

Plus, I have to second what Tsukae said - janitors provide tremendous services for public health, and their job deserves to be a higher status one. Also, we will probably need to re-evaluate things, giving people with relatively unpleasant jobs like janitors shorter hours or bonus pay. Certainly they deserve it more than Wall Street CEOs.

[AnthArmo]

Point out that most people become Doctors due to a genuine passion for that work, rather than pay.

Put forward the position that Janitors should be paid more, as their work is thankless and demeaning, wereas the work of a Doctor is inherently rewarding.

[Cencus]

The best way to answer this un in my opinion is to turn the question round on itself. "Why should a janitor be paid the same as a doctor" becomes "why should a janitor be paid less than a doctor". Then you can argue that two people of equal intellegence but different backgrounds may indeed end up in those exact jobs. After that you can gooff on one about how shite inherited wealth is and generally beat em round the head with their own system, not as fun as pulling their arms off and beating em to death with the soggy end, but still very satisfying :)

[Hen]

If was thinking about how best to explain this so I came up with my 'car anatomy' example.

There is a car. The car is driven by an engine. The engine is an intricate part to the car, that requires in depth knowledge of how to make, and subsequently much education. In capitalism the engine makers are paid greatly a) because the engine is deemed "more important" b) the engine makers have been through long education to prepare themselves.

The engine is important, very important. However, it is not "more important". The engine cannot drive the car by itself. The car cannot function at all without wheels, brakes, gears, suspension, electrics e.t.c. Therefore the makers of these parts (depending on how hard they work) deserve the same wage. Of course some people would argue that wind-screen wipers, or car radios are not as vitally important as the engine or the other parts. Whilst the car can still function without them, they serve a purpose, allbeit a subjective one. A capitalist cannot argue against this, because a capitalist values a diamond (a useless commodity) vastly higher that water (a life-saving commodity) for example.

So we come to the engine makers long process of education. If Marx argues that each be rewarded in proportion to their labour shouldn't a doctor, who has given a quarter of his/her life in labour in order to become one, be sufficiently rewarded. Well yes, of course he/she should. But a doctor needs the fruits of other people's labour also; from the teachers that teach them, from the cleaners that clean their hospitals and prevent disease, from the secretaries that organize working schedules, from the builders that have built their hospital. He/she is important, but not "more important". It is common and accepted to ask, why should a doctor work really hard when a janitor gets paid the same...but think about our situation now - why should a nurse work really hard for not even a percentage of what a company shareholder may earn?

For this analysis we are not necessarily targeting hard-working professionals like doctors. We are targeting the few, who make heaps of money from mere ownership. Those who make money, not from their own labour, but from the labour of others. For example those who make money from dividends on stock, interest on bonds and securities, royalties etc. Those investment bankers who take billions in bonuses. Are these people paid proportional to their contribution? Definitely not.

So your question - "why doesn't everyone just become a janitor and bother with studying and working to be a doctor?". Well i would give you my version of this - why doesn't everyone just mobilize in revolution instead of bothering to work in relative poverty.

[EvilRedGuy]

Job rotations? Everyone gets to be skilled in everything and everyone gets to try every job there is, if they choose to ofcourse, but they wont be stuck up with the same job.

[graymouser]

Job rotations? Everyone gets to be skilled in everything and everyone gets to try every job there is, if they choose to ofcourse, but they wont be stuck up with the same job.
Well, in some jobs that would become possible, but mostly because production processes would be increasingly automated. So to the degree that you could make "jobs" that humans have to do pretty straightforward tasks that can be taught in a few weeks, yeah. But I don't see things like being a doctor turning that way any time soon. There's still far too much specialized knowledge to do it, and doctors would probably remain something of a "status profession" (again, using Cuba as an example rather than the US model).

Janitorial work, OTOH, could probably be much more mechanized and definitely involve rotating staff.

[syndicat]

Why should there be a job called "janitor"? If the work of emptying trash and washing floors and toilets were tasks that were part of the jobs of the people who work in workplaces, there would be no need for a separate job to do just that. It's done now because there are people with not many skills who can be hired to do this job and paid poorly. To put it another way, the fact that "janitor" is a job reflects the class system and the system of wage-slavery. It's not that what the janitor does is not necessary. But why force someone to do just that?

People are paid more today because they have more bargaining power in the market. This can come from things like owning capital...the owner of a business will make more than his employees. He has power to ensure that.

People who are hired to manage and chart out direction for the firm, who have scarce skills that require lots of training and require credentials (doctors, lawyers etc) can command more money because of the power they have from these advantages. Also, because capital needs to pay a premium to bosses to ensure their loyalty to the profit-making goals of the owners.

The solution to this is to train more people to have these skills. At present training of this sort is restricted and expensive. Some people ask, Why would people want to acquire these skills...go thru the training...if they can't make more money?

As pointed out above, people who train as doctors often do so because it is an occupation where they feel they can help people. It is also an occupation with a lot of prestige...partly for this reason.

Sometimes it is argued that training to be a doctor is a lot of work, so why not a lifetime making many times what janitors make? Well, is being a student so harsh that it demands such a payback? Many people like to learn things, like to acquire skills. The idea that being a student is more arduous then being a janitor or a coal miner is absurd. When I was in graduate school, i found it to be one of the most enjoyable periods in my life...getting to have constant discussions with people interested in the same subject.

And if the public pays stipends to people to be in school and the medical training is free, one can't argue that the student has to be compensated for personal expense of education.