Matthew Yglesias » Moving Day

Oct 18th, 2008 at 8:45 pm

Moving Day

I’m a veteran of several moves of a “let’s get a bunch of friends together and all move a bunch of stuff” variety. Today, I hired a moving company. It was a good choice. It’s also the kind of thing that, on a more political note, really dramatizes how bizarre it is that people often characterize current levels of inequality in the United States as reflecting a desire to reward hard work or say that in the United States you can get ahead by working hard. I’m sure the partners at Jones Day and the wizards at Goldman Sachs work hard, but I don’t think you can seriously deny that moving furniture for a living is hard work.

Comments
83

Filed under: Economy, Inequality,

83 Responses to “Moving Day”

bdbd Says:
October 18th, 2008 at 8:49 pm
speaking of hard work, rewards thereof,

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2008/oct/18/banking-useconomy
Ben Says:
October 18th, 2008 at 8:49 pm
Matt,

Moving crews are awesome. I too have done several moves by myself, but I have had to move three times in the past 18 months (due, I might add, to no fault of my own). The last time around, I hired Two Guys and a Truck, and they went above and beyond.

At the time, though, I had a similar thought as you did. I teach sixth-grade English for a living, and people always tell me how hard my job must be. Yeah, it might be challenging, but I’m not doing what these guys do.
Brad Says:
October 18th, 2008 at 8:54 pm
This is a strong contender for dumbest blog post I’ve ever read.
mert7878 Says:
October 18th, 2008 at 9:01 pm
Matt -

Welcome to adulthood. Next step: taking cabs.
JTC Says:
October 18th, 2008 at 9:04 pm
Watch the people behind the counter at the fast food joint next time you’re there at the lunch rush…
kid bitzer Says:
October 18th, 2008 at 9:17 pm
c’mon matt–don’t you get it?

income is a direct reflection of hard work, industry, and application.

someone making 20 million a year has *got* to be working 2,000 times as hard as somebody making $5/hr.

fuck, if that isn’t true, you’d have to conclude the system isn’t fair. and we know that can’t be right.
Rob_in_Hawaii Says:
October 18th, 2008 at 9:30 pm
Before I got my PhD and moved into the elite ranks of the adjunct-on-the-treadmill-to-oblivion ranks I was in trucking for over 20 years. Seven of those years were spent as a furniture mover, lumping folks’ possessions up and down flights of stairs in San Francisco. Just remembering those days makes my arms, back, and legs ache.

In this world there is work and then there is WORK. (Hope you tipped the guys, Matt.)
anonymiss Says:
October 18th, 2008 at 9:32 pm
In unrelated news, I lived with a professional pianist for a few years, and we changed apartments once.

Our piano movers were awesome, but there were just two of them, and I swear one of them weighed 140 pounds.

It was a very sad moment for me.
thehova Says:
October 18th, 2008 at 9:55 pm
Working for a moving company is great summer work.

I got ripped. And the physical work really cleared mind (I was becoming mildly depressed before I began the work and thought about seeing a psychologist).
Mixner Says:
October 18th, 2008 at 10:15 pm
This is a strong contender for dumbest blog post I’ve ever read.

It’s pretty dumb, but most of Matthew’s McCain-bashing posts are even dumber.

Obviously, economic productivity is a matter not just of working “hard” but the type of work also. Unskilled physical work like moving furniture generally isn’t as productive as skilled knowledge work like financial analysis, so furniture movers tend to make less money than financial analysts. That obviously doesn’t mean hard work is not important to income or success. A furniture mover who puts in a lot of hours and works hard to ensure his employer or customers are satisfied with his performance on the job is likely to make more money and be more successful than one who is lazy and apathetic.
Don Williams Says:
October 18th, 2008 at 10:24 pm
Speaking of moving day in DC, Here’s a story over on a survivalist blog that’s kinda comical — concerns how a guy in Washington DC who was prepared to evacuate DC in the event of nuclear war, Pandemic flu,etc has suddenly found himself homeless and having to camp out in a campground.

Story cracked me up — I just knew it had to be Matthew. But evidently not.
——————–

“I thought that I would communicate an interesting story for your web blog. As I write this, I’m holed up in campground/RV park near the District of Columbia (DC) Metropolitan area. How I got here was totally unexpected. My roommate is female, a former army buddy and suffers from chronic depression—maybe bi polar disorder. We maintained a platonic cohabitation for two months until she swore a Temporary Peace Order against me because she felt “threatened”. In the liberal pest hole of Maryland, that’s all it takes. No battery, assault or actual threats—I just yelled at her to clean up after her dog (perhaps the 20th time she didn’t do this) and, in the span of 24 hours the deputies came, gave me 10 minutes to get some things, then escorted me out of the property that I co-rented. That means I was instantly homeless and without the time to assemble my preps.

Fortunately it was payday and I had money for a hotel, an attorney, and what not. But the unbearable part was having my Bug Out Bag and supplies in a residence that I could not approach or enter under court order which gave me a very sickening feeling of what a fast and unplanned for emergency can produce. My preps are centered around an emergency that is slow coming with warning. Save for my camping/bug-out gear, most of my preps cannot be moved rapidly (like 5 gallon buckets). Further, my emergency plan calls for me to hunker down at my place of residence until things stop moving and I have time and latitude to maneuver and get to my bug-out site for the longer duration. Being under the supervision of two sheriff’s deputies put a damper on grabbing my survival gear.

Grabbing my emergency cash, which is well-concealed (Go MI!) was problematic.

Through my attorney, I was able to pick up much of my camping/bugout gear from the former residence. Tell ‘ya what, having a good set of quality camping and survival gear that can be hastily put together is a real boon. I purchase good gear and 20+ years (and counting) in the military has given real appreciation for quality equipment.
Not that an urban campground is primitive: hot and cold water, wireless Internet and a laundry make it a perfect spot for temporary emergency stays and at $40/night, much cheaper than a hotel room (in the DC Area, plan on $100 per night minimum for a single room with a military discount). It sucks that I only have a tent to come home to, but it beats living out of my Jeep Cherokee or in a box (or with the Housemate from H*ll) ”
———–
ha ha ha. Better put up a few more posts tonight Matthew or you could end up sitting around a campfire with this guy, roasting a can of non-kosher baked beans.

Come to think of it, George Bush does have about 11 more weeks to destroy the economy, doesn’t he?
Don Williams Says:
October 18th, 2008 at 10:29 pm
Re Mixner’s comment “Unskilled physical work like moving furniture generally isn’t as productive as skilled knowledge work like financial analysis, so furniture movers tend to make less money than financial analysts.”
—————
Plus, when furniture movers drop a piano from the 6th story, it’s usually their ass on the line. In contrast, Financial advisers slip a $20 to a Congressman and the Congressman steals money out of the public treasury to pay for the piano.
kynefski Says:
October 18th, 2008 at 10:31 pm
If we only pay attention, all of us have numerous opportunities every day to witness how bizarre it is that people often characterize current levels of inequality in the United States as reflecting a desire to reward hard work.
Mixner Says:
October 18th, 2008 at 10:33 pm
The financial advisor equivalent of dropping the piano is losing money for your client, and if that happens he’s likely to fire you.
Don Williams Says:
October 18th, 2008 at 10:36 pm
Correction: If financial advisors drop the Social Security baby grand piano, then the Congressman simply compensates the homeowner with a $30 MP3 Player.
Nylund Says:
October 18th, 2008 at 10:38 pm
My friends and I (especially the ones in 5th floor walk-ups) have a saying, “Money spent on movers is the best money you’ve ever spend.”

The distances between our economic classes is now so huge, that its all but killed the American dream. Where I grew up the high school options were either the free public schools or a few private ones that charged $3,000 a year. Now, 15 years later, those public schools are still free of course, but the private schools now cost $30,000 a year. It is depressing to think that even if I am significantly more successful than my parents, I will not be able to provide the same things for my children that they provided for me (as I went to a private high school). A very large group of “successful” families have now been pushed out of having any choice as to where to send their kid to school. Anything other than the public schools is now an option only for the super rich. No amount of belt-tightening with a non-executive salary will get you there.
Don Williams Says:
October 18th, 2008 at 10:40 pm
Re Mixner’s comment “The financial advisor equivalent of dropping the piano is losing money for your client, and if that happens he’s likely to fire you.”
———–
Actually, I thought the financial advisor equivalent of dropping the piano is a $4 Trillion stock market crash — in which case , Paulson buys a round of drinks for everyone and sticks the bartender with the $1.5 Trillion tab.
Nylund Says:
October 18th, 2008 at 10:40 pm
err. spent.
yave begnet Says:
October 18th, 2008 at 11:07 pm
Brad & Mixner: strong contenders for the dumbest commenters I’ve ever read. Go read the Corner or something that validates your messed-up world view.

My wife’s new job paid for our move from Brooklyn to Philly, and the crew consisted of 3 guys on the Brooklyn side and 2 guys unloading in Philly. All Mexican or Central American. I had never heard Qechua before I heard the 125 pound dude with the bulk of the weight of our couch (with hideaway) cursing out the guy above him as they were carrying it down the stairs. One guy hoisted up my dresser, situated it on his back, and hauled it down three flights of stairs, all on his own. It reminded me of an ant carrying something many times its body size. Simply amazing. That’s hard work, and I’d love to see a banker carry even his own suitcase down three flights of stairs. But he’s more “productive” than the guy who moves his stuff, at eminent risk of deportation, who may not even speak Spanish much less English, may not have had running water growing up, but will at least not dump our economy into a massive recession.
Hector Says:
October 18th, 2008 at 11:12 pm
Mixner,

Yeah, those ‘hard workin’ financial analysts sure did a heck of a job losing taxpayer money and helping send us into a recession. If that’s hard work I’d hate to see what laziness looks like.

It’s nice to see Mr. Yglesias starting to realize that there’s “work”, and then there’s WORK. Society could function without financial analysts, but it couldn’t function without people doing manual labor. As Simone Weil put it, in doing physical labor we come closer to God.
Hector Says:
October 18th, 2008 at 11:15 pm
As for the ’skill’ of the financial analysts, wasn’t there some study a few years back where they got a chimpanzee to play the stock market by throwing darts at names of stocks that were posted on the wall? If I recall correctly, the chimp did better than the average stockbroker. I don’t see why anyone needs to make millions of dollars for doing what literally, a trained monkey could do better.
Ken Lovell Says:
October 18th, 2008 at 11:17 pm
A furniture mover who puts in a lot of hours and works hard to ensure his employer or customers are satisfied with his performance on the job is likely to make more money and be more successful than one who is lazy and apathetic.

Hehe suuure … why he might even grow up to be president.

I just love the way wingnuts continue to make fatuous generalisations about the world no matter how much empirical evidence accrues to demonstrate they are irrelevant to the way the world actually functions.

Now let’s see … the best way to help the underpaid furniture mover is a humungous tax cut for the rich, right mixner? Cos everybody knows the benefits will trickle down, it’s just common sense.
Hector Says:
October 18th, 2008 at 11:18 pm
Yave Begnet,

That’s a very touching story. I’ve worked in Africa so of course I’ve seen plenty of people carrying loads taller than them, and I’m amazed at their fortitude the same way you’re amazed at the moving man you mentioned. One little quibble: Quechua (or “Kichwa”) is spoken in the South American Andes, not in Central America. Perhaps you meant Maya, or Nahuatl?
grisjuan Says:
October 18th, 2008 at 11:18 pm
A few weeks ago I happened to be doing some work in the lobby of our building while a move was happening.

It was educational: if you saw how your stuff got treated while you weren’t watching, you’d think twice about hiring a cheap moving company. They repeated overloaded their carts so the piles of boxes (yes, including stereo equipment) fell over with a crash.
Brad Says:
October 18th, 2008 at 11:26 pm
Matt:

I completely agree that there is just too much inequality and obviously too much value placed on guys wearing cuff-links. However, I would be interested to see how many of these commenters would have moved themselves in the cost of hiring movers doubled as a result of doubling the wages for these workers. It is one of the interesting facets to many jobs immigrants do that people get all bothered over. Where I grew-up, there were little to no immigrants, and therefore, services such as landscaping were much more expensive. So guess what, few people used them. But in California, guess what…many, many people have landscaping services.

So what does this mean? Well – we have unfortunately moved most jobs where hard work actually does pay-off overseas. These jobs provided products that had high value because they had to be owned (automobiles in most parts of the country are required in order to function). However, we slowly moved those overseas, and now, most of the hard-labor jobs are for services which, while nice are a luxury and have a very high elasticity of demand.

It is why our current economic condition is so dire. Many of us work in jobs which exist only where there is excess capital/spending power. But the jobs which need to come back first to create the additional wealth have all been sent overseas.
James Gary Says:
October 19th, 2008 at 12:08 am
It was educational: if you saw how your stuff got treated while you weren’t watching, you’d think twice about hiring a cheap moving company.

Cue libertarian commenter to explain why this couldn’t possibly be true, because the unfettered free market insures that all independent contractors will always deliver the highest-quality service possible.
Jim Says:
October 19th, 2008 at 12:20 am
Should pay be based on how “hard” the work is or how scarce this skill is required to do the work?
PTS Says:
October 19th, 2008 at 12:21 am
Under no circumstances should anyone use Allied movers for a cross-country move. The Keystone cops level of buffoonery I had to endure in exchange for paying them thousands of dollars was pretty dramatic.

And, I think the “hard work” claim is really a proxy for “people’s choices are responsible for their economic condition.” While I don’t think that’s right, it is considerably less foolish.
No Comment Says:
October 19th, 2008 at 12:31 am
If the partners at Jones Day are making so much money, why can’t they afford some decent web design people?
blah Says:
October 19th, 2008 at 12:33 am
Any particular reason you gave a plug to Jones Day?

And speaking of hard-working investment bankers, did anybody catch Andrew Lahde’s fuck you letter to the investment world?

Recently, on the front page of Section C of the Wall Street Journal, a hedge fund manager who was also closing up shop (a $300 million fund), was quoted as saying, “What I have learned about the hedge fund business is that I hate it.” I could not agree more with that statement. I was in this game for the money. The low hanging fruit, i.e. idiots whose parents paid for prep school, Yale, and then the Harvard MBA, was there for the taking. These people who were (often) truly not worthy of the education they received (or supposedly received) rose to the top of companies such as AIG, Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers and all levels of our government. All of this behavior supporting the Aristocracy, only ended up making it easier for me to find people stupid enough to take the other side of my trades. God bless America.

I will no longer manage money for other people or institutions. I have enough of my own wealth to manage. Some people, who think they have arrived at a reasonable estimate of my net worth, might be surprised that I would call it quits with such a small war chest. That is fine; I am content with my rewards. Moreover, I will let others try to amass nine, ten or eleven figure net worths. Meanwhile, their lives suck. Appointments back to back, booked solid for the next three months, they look forward to their two week vacation in January during which they will likely be glued to their Blackberries or other such devices. What is the point? They will all be forgotten in fifty years anyway. Steve Balmer, Steven Cohen, and Larry Ellison will all be forgotten. I do not understand the legacy thing. Nearly everyone will be forgotten. Give up on leaving your mark. Throw the Blackberry away and enjoy life.

http://www.clusterstock.com/2008/10/hedge-fund-manager-quits-slams-idiot-mbas-urges-hemp-investments
leo Says:
October 19th, 2008 at 12:34 am
Oy, it’s not the “hard” work that counts, it’s how much you handed each one as a tip.

Stop sounding like a 14-year-old.
kan Says:
October 19th, 2008 at 1:10 am
There was a list of things that you don’t do after you hit 30.

One of them was you don’t help friends move. And you don’t ask your friends to help you move.

I have followed that one since I hit 30.
Sonic Charmer Says:
October 19th, 2008 at 1:10 am
If I just write in my diary, “Matthew Yglesias REALLY CARES about the working class!”, can there stop being posts like this?
Hector Says:
October 19th, 2008 at 1:17 am
Kan,

When the coming global economic crisis render the American lifestyle permanently unviable, then you will probably have to start asking your friends to move once again.

Take heart- you will be a better person for it.

Jim,

It should be a little of both, don’t you think? And perhaps, based on how important the work is for society.
Rob Says:
October 19th, 2008 at 1:43 am
“I’m a veteran of several moves of a “let’s get a bunch of friends together and all move a bunch of stuff” variety. Today, I hired a moving company.”

So what you’re saying is “My friends are lame, and screwed me over after I helped them move”?
right Says:
October 19th, 2008 at 1:44 am
What Jim said
Tyro Says:
October 19th, 2008 at 1:59 am
Should pay be based on how “hard” the work is or how scarce this skill is required to do the work?

Well, all I know is that, politically speaking, saying, “I worked hard for my money” sounds a lot better than, “I made sure to carefully choose a career in which my acquired skillset was not easily replicable by others in my local job market for my money.”
DJ Says:
October 19th, 2008 at 2:34 am
Obviously, economic productivity is a matter not just of working “hard” but the type of work also

Jeez, Mix, thanks for clearing that up. I’m sure Matt didn’t know that at all.

Did you hear Joe the Plumber(TM) justify his aversion to taxes in terms of his relative economic productivity? Nope….he doesn’t want to pay more taxes becaussssse…wait for it…..he works HARD!!
Asher Says:
October 19th, 2008 at 2:34 am
One guy hoisted up my dresser, situated it on his back, and hauled it down three flights of stairs, all on his own. It reminded me of an ant carrying something many times its body size. Simply amazing. That’s hard work, and I’d love to see a banker carry even his own suitcase down three flights of stairs. But he’s more “productive” than the guy who moves his stuff, at eminent risk of deportation

But your simply amazing moving man could be replaced by millions of strong men. While not so many people, believe it or not, are qualified to run an investment bank. The fact that they all fucked up validates how hard it is more than it shows that anybody can do it.
fostert Says:
October 19th, 2008 at 4:30 am
If nothing else, hauling furniture makes you understand why you want to stay in college. I did it for a few days of moving through a temp agency, and then I got reassigned to building pools. It turns out that my mouthing off about the illiterate driver got be bumped from the good job. And that’s pretty strange. I complain to the dispatcher that the guy driving can’t read street signs and won’t let me help, and I’m the one without a job? But I got a worse job in pool building, at least. Let’s put it this way: when you look at pouring concrete as a welcome break from digging, you have a shitty job. But hey, it convinced me to stay in college.
Hector Says:
October 19th, 2008 at 8:40 am
Re: The fact that they all fucked up validates how hard it is more than it shows that anybody can do it.

Er, no it doesn’t. Not unless you think those investment bankers were honest people doing the best they could. In fact, they were greedy bastards who didn’t give a s–t about the common good, and threw away money like a drunk sailor in a brothel, because they knew that Uncle Sam would bail them out if necessary.

If a trained chimp can do your job better than you can, then you have a problem. Sadly, in this case, their problem became the country’s problem.
otto Says:
October 19th, 2008 at 8:44 am
More moving-Matt stories, please.
Amit Says:
October 19th, 2008 at 9:10 am
It’s natural for people to exhibit some psychic resistance to accepting that wages are set by, roughly, supply and demand, and not by the folk-economics mechanism of how hard the work is. The decoupling of desert and reward that the supply-demand explanation implies is hard for people to accept. We want the universe to be just. Of course, you can argue that if you can get more for your labour on the open market than the other guy, you deserve more, but that implies that someone who is disciplined, hardworking and used every opportunity they had will often deserve less than someone dissolute and lazy, which is counterintuitive.
lampwick Says:
October 19th, 2008 at 9:12 am
If I were king, I would make it law that anyone earning more than $250,000 per year would have to spend at least one day per year moving furniture or performing some equivalent task, like butchering hogs. Fail to do so, and the government would confiscate all of your income above the $250,000.
Don Williams Says:
October 19th, 2008 at 10:05 am
Re “While not so many people, believe it or not, are qualified to run an investment bank. The fact that they all fucked up validates how hard it is more than it shows that anybody can do it.”
————-
Sniff. Sniff.
I smell an ex-post-facto Republican excuse for the Bush Administration being created.
NBarnes Says:
October 19th, 2008 at 10:49 am
Unskilled physical work like moving furniture generally isn’t as productive as skilled knowledge work like financial analysis, so furniture movers tend to make less money than financial analysts.

I am without words.
yave begnet Says:
October 19th, 2008 at 12:41 pm
not so many people, believe it or not, are qualified to run an investment bank. The fact that they all fucked up validates how hard it is more than it shows that anybody can do it.

That is retarded.

It’s natural for people to exhibit some psychic resistance to accepting that wages are set by, roughly, supply and demand, and not by the folk-economics mechanism of how hard the work is.

Ok, I’ll buy it with the premise that supply for investment bankers, associates at white shoe law firms, etc. is artificially restricted by various barriers to entry, e.g. graduate schools w/ high tuition and entry tests that favor prep school kids who can pay for Kaplan, kids whose families can afford 2-3 years of “nonproductive” training time at $40,000/year. I played that game for awhile, and like Andrew Lahde I’ll tell you it’s bullshit, it’s rigged. And demand for those products–do we really need as many Wall Street analysts as we have to send our economy into the toilet? Couldn’t half of them have done the job just as well? Supply and demand my ass.

Hector, you are right, it was probably not Quechua, probably one of the others you mentioned.
Tyro Says:
October 19th, 2008 at 2:45 pm
It’s natural for people to exhibit some psychic resistance to accepting that wages are set by, roughly, supply and demand, and not by the folk-economics mechanism of how hard the work is.

Ask someone why they make lots of money or why their taxes should stay low, and they’ll say, “because I work hard for my money, and I don’t want it going to lazy people.” Very rarely will they ever say, “because I believe I shouldn’t pay higher taxes on my upper-bracket income because I chose a career for which the added value of my labor is quite high and difficult to easily replace.” The point of MattY’s post is to point out that those relying primarily on the former claim are being disingenuous about the realities of “hard work,” if not being downright dishonest.
Justin Says:
October 19th, 2008 at 3:26 pm
Seriously guys–this type of criticism makes liberals look pretty ignorant (like conservatives blasting gay-loving anti-Christian big city elites).

Yes, a partner at Jones Day earns a lot more than a mover–whether one works harder isn’t really the issue. Rather, a law firm partner is a difficult to acquire skill that people are willing to pay a lot for. Movers–not so much. Most in-shape people with a decent work ethic can be a mover. Next time you need, say, sophisticated tax advice, you’ll see why people pay more for lawyers than movers.

Also, the blanket criticism of investment banks looks a little silly. It wasn’t “analysts” or stock pickers that got us into this mess. The banks took on way to much risk and got burned. Yeah, the heads of the banks did a terrible job and didn’t deserve the money they made, but, “some guy off the street” isn’t going to do a better job–this is analogous to the Sarah Palin criticism of government and “elites”. Like any powerful position, a head of an investment bank has a pretty rare skill set, but also, a big opportunity to f&#* up, which f*# up will have huge repercussions for the rest of society. But blaming, say, a mergers and acquisitions investment banker for the financial mess makes about as much sense as blaming minorities who took out subprime mortgages.

Progressives need to focus, and not just flail around blaming “Wall Street”. An economic crisis shows Americans how poor the US safety net is, and this presents liberals with a receptive audience for strengthening the safety net, creating better health-care policies etc. Ranting about how working people should get paid as much as law firm partners isn’t going to get us anywhere.
yave begnet Says:
October 19th, 2008 at 3:55 pm
Next time you need, say, sophisticated tax advice, you’ll see why people pay more for lawyers than movers.

I think this implies that tax advice for complicated corporate entities is harder to figure out than how to get a bulky sofa down a narrow set of stairs, and that there is more at stake if the advice is bad than if a banister gets dinged or a couch gets dropped.

I think there’s more to it than that, though. My work advising low income clients about their immigration options is easily as difficult and complicated as my previous work as a transactional associate attorney for a corporate firm. And there is a lot more at stake for my current clients than for my previous clients, in terms of life impact if not monetary value.

I think that simply means the problems of my clients at the firm were overvalued and the problems of my current clients are undervalued. My current clients would pay a lot for my advice if they could. They can’t. Largely because their jobs as movers, line cooks, doormen, and taxi drivers don’t pay enough for them to hire an expensive lawyer. Even if they were highly educated back home, often they can’t use that education here. And their children, if they weren’t born here and don’t have their papers, often can’t get into college or can’t get financial aid to stay in college.

Meanwhile, the firm was billing me out at some obscene hourly rate before I’d even passed the bar, even as a summer associate before I’d graduated from law school. I did the best I could, but let’s just say I didn’t have much experience.

We’re not making these arguments because we’re ignorant or unsophisticated, Justin. We’re making them because the system works great for a small, well-connected minority and works badly for a much larger number.
Mixner Says:
October 19th, 2008 at 4:24 pm
Ask someone why they make lots of money or why their taxes should stay low, and they’ll say, “because I work hard for my money, and I don’t want it going to lazy people.” Very rarely will they ever say, “because I believe I shouldn’t pay higher taxes on my upper-bracket income because I chose a career for which the added value of my labor is quite high and difficult to easily replace.” The point of MattY’s post is to point out that those relying primarily on the former claim are being disingenuous about the realities of “hard work,” if not being downright dishonest.

More baloney. “Hard work” includes the work involved in acquiring the knowledge and education that adds value to your labor. If the furniture mover works hard at getting more education and training, he can also join ranks of white collar workers.

I doubt the “progressives” here are really as dumb as they’re pretending to be. They’re just trying to score cheap class-warfare points.
Mixner Says:
October 19th, 2008 at 4:39 pm
We’re not making these arguments because we’re ignorant or unsophisticated, Justin.

What is your excuse, then?

I think there’s more to it than that, though. My work advising low income clients about their immigration options is easily as difficult and complicated as my previous work as a transactional associate attorney for a corporate firm. And there is a lot more at stake for my current clients than for my previous clients, in terms of life impact if not monetary value.

The labor market rewards productivity. Productivity means producing things that people value. You make less as an immigration advisor than you did as a corporate attorney because you provide less value.
Anonymous to protect my job Says:
October 19th, 2008 at 4:44 pm
Hey Matt, I spent quite a bit of time at Jones Day last week reading your blog. Cut us some slack.
Justin Says:
October 19th, 2008 at 6:44 pm
I think there’s more to it than that, though. My work advising low income clients about their immigration options is easily as difficult and complicated as my previous work as a transactional associate attorney for a corporate firm. And there is a lot more at stake for my current clients than for my previous clients, in terms of life impact if not monetary value.

I’m not going to disagree that lower income people typically don’t get high class legal advice (having done immigration pro bono myself, I’m guessing you’d agree that a lot of immigration attorneys aren’t the best lawyers out there–not that there aren’t a lot of good ones too). The point is there is a market for certain skill–half of the market involves having someone who is willing to pay for those skills. I suppose the government could step in and pay attorneys who service low income people $500,000/year, but I’m not really sure how relevant or helpful would be (ie, the fact that poor people get poor basic services, like healthcare and legal advice, isn’t necessarily in conflict with rich people getting good healthcare and good legal advice–you can have both).

The point is the comments on this thread are remarkably unsophisticated and a little embarrassing (I can tell the people throwing around the term “Wall Street analyst” have no idea what an analyst does, or that the people criticizing Wall Street seem to have no idea what an investment bank does). I get that people are angry, but the current financial crisis isn’t the fault of ALL people involved in finance, just like it’s not the fault of all of government, or of all people who bought homes. Again, this rhetoric is like Sarah Palin blaming “liberal elites” for all the bad stuff in the world.
Amit Says:
October 19th, 2008 at 6:54 pm
Re: 47, 48. I mustn’t have made myself very clear. I was trying to support Matthew’s point. I was assuming that if supply and demand determines wages, then the wages commanded by the unvirtuous will often exceed those commanded by the virtuous. If the demand for hack journalism is higher than the demand for good journalism and the supply is the same, then the hack journalist will command higher wages despite being less morally deserving. If the demand for pornography is higher than the demand for archaeology and the supply is the same, then the pornographer will command higher wages than the archaeologist despite being less morally deserving. (The pornographer will be more productive in the sense of the purely de facto market value of his product, but so what?) And even when actual vice isn’t involved, that there is a high level of demand for what you are in a position to provide is often a matter of luck rather than desert.

The point I was trying to make was that right-wingers wish this decoupling of wages and virtue weren’t the case, so they go into denial.
Amit Says:
October 19th, 2008 at 7:06 pm
I mean, all of us in some sense wish that this decoupling of virtue and wages weren’t the case, but moderates see it as an unfortunate necessity to be ameliorated where possible – hardworking people shouldn’t get treated like crap just because the ratio of demand to supply for what they can produce is low – whereas market fundamentalists pretend that there is no decoupling.
NBarnes Says:
October 19th, 2008 at 7:26 pm
>i>The labor market rewards productivity. Productivity means producing things that people value. You make less as an immigration advisor than you did as a corporate attorney because you provide less value.

Mmmm. Smell the moral clarity.
Mixner Says:
October 19th, 2008 at 7:38 pm
Amit,

I mean, all of us in some sense wish that this decoupling of virtue and wages weren’t the case, but moderates see it as an unfortunate necessity to be ameliorated where possible – hardworking people shouldn’t get treated like crap just because the ratio of demand to supply for what they can produce is low – whereas market fundamentalists pretend that there is no decoupling.

In case you haven’t noticed, wages in America are largely determined by the market. Unskilled manual workers like furniture movers don’t make much money because the market does not value their labor very highly. A “hack” journalist most likely will make more money than a “serious” journalist if there is more demand for the “hack’s” work. A pornographer probably will make more money than an archaeologist. We don’t pay workers according to some arbitrary standard of “virtue.” We pay them according to the market rate for their labor. Government makes only very limited interventions in wage rates, such as setting a minimum wage, and even those interventions tend to be controversial. If this is “market fundamentalism,” then pretty much everyone in the political mainstream is a “market fundamentalist.”
Tyro Says:
October 19th, 2008 at 8:43 pm
Mixner, as you are well aware, many people resort to moral defenses of their complaints about progressive taxation by justifying all the “hard work” they do. You know what? Lots of work is really, really hard to do. Personally, I think people need to stop whining about their “hard work” when they’re trying to morally justify their far-right wing Republican religious beliefs about taxation. If right-wingers wouldn’t constantly resort to the “I work hard” defense, we would mock them a lot less (ok, probably not, but we wouldn’t mock them for being such complete physical and mental wimps and weaklings compared to movers).
Sam M Says:
October 19th, 2008 at 8:51 pm
Silliness.

I worked as a landscaper this summer. Simply backbreaking. So I was glad to get back to my job as a university professor this fall. I guess I make more teaching. (Not much, actually.) Even though it’s easier. Or… is it? it required four years of pretty serious study as an undergrad, plus four years of deferred wages and a ton of debt. Then another stretch of similar economic backsteps in grad school.

That is, if I had worked as a landscaper from the age of 18 to 35 (when I started teaching) and put as much as I spent on education into a safe, low yield bond, I would prbably be a rich man right now.

Moreover, what’s the solution here? Pay landscapers more than professors? Really? What would compel anyone to be a professor, if that were the case?

this reminds me of the bullshit I hear all the time about how terrible it is that NFL quarterbacks get paid more than kindergarten teachers. I guess I wish more people went to college long enough to take econ 101. As far as I can tell, there are currently about 75 first, second and third string quarterbacks on NFL teams right now. Of these, maybe three are great. About five more are really good. And this with an average salary of about a gazillion dollars a year.

Teaching might be hard. But it ain’t that hard. I’m a teacher. I ought to know.

Same with movers. They get paid shit because… It’s not that really hard to be a mover. Yeah, you sweat a little. Same as landscaping. But after a few months, you basically have the hang of it. Until you get tired of it and quit. But your boss doesn’t care much. Because, you know, it’s kind of easy to teach someone to do it.
Mixner Says:
October 19th, 2008 at 9:15 pm
Tyro,

Mixner, as you are well aware, many people resort to moral defenses of their complaints about progressive taxation by justifying all the “hard work” they do.

That’s right. Hard work should be rewarded. Laziness and apathy should not. This isn’t a terribly controversial proposition, except among the loony left.

You know what? Lots of work is really, really hard to do.

But not all kinds of work are equally productive. If your labor has value at all, the harder you work the more you should be rewarded. Again, this isn’t terribly controversial.

Personally, I think people need to stop whining about their “hard work” when they’re trying to morally justify their far-right wing Republican religious beliefs about taxation.

Personally, I hope the loony left continues to assert that people who create more wealth–either by working harder or by doing more productive kinds of work or both–do not deserve to make more money than people who create less wealth. It’s such an utterly stupid and unpopular position that no one else takes it seriously.
Amit Says:
October 19th, 2008 at 10:52 pm
Jeez, Mixner, I’m not saying that wages shouldn’t be determined by the market. Of course there’s no alternative to the market. All I’m saying is that because wages are determined by the market, archaeologists earn less than pornographers, so being a winner in the wages stakes isn’t a mark of virtue. I’m saying that the market can’t do everything we might wish for (make wages reflect virtue, make the lion lie down with the lamb, etc.); I’m not saying that’s a reason to get rid of the market (though it is I think a reason to have a minimum wage, some measure of progressivity in taxation). What’s silly, though, is insisting that wages do too reflect virtue – it’s that that’s a sign of market fundamentalism.

I hope the loony left continues to assert that people who create more wealth–either by working harder or by doing more productive kinds of work or both–do not deserve to make more money than people who create less wealth.

If you win a fair lottery, you deserve to be allowed to keep your winnings, but that doesn’t mean that you deserved to win. No-one is seriously arguing that we should take away what the market accords the better off; what we’re arguing against is the idea that the market always or almost always accords on the basis of desert, which is a peculiarly right-wing point of view.
Hector Says:
October 19th, 2008 at 11:44 pm
Justin,

No, I don’t see that ‘financial analysts’ do real work in the same way that a doctor, a fisherman, a scientist or a manual laborer do work. It’s true that we need money to be managed, but it isn’t true that we need a parasitic elite of highly paid Wall Street thieves to do it. Credit and investment could easily be placed in the hands of the government, and controlled by people who had the public interest in mind, and not their own pocketbooks. I suspect that publicly salaried money managers might even do a better job than the aforementioned chimp.

Mixner,

You talk a good game, but then you tip your hand by claiming i’s OK if a pornographer should get paid more than an archeologist. This only proves that you have no moral values at all, which raises the question why anyone should take you seriously. If “people” value the work of financial parasites more than the people whose labor actually produces tangible goods, then that only proves that often, we are greedy and stupid. People value cheeseburgers more than they value broccoli, that doesn’t mean that cheeseburgers are actually more nutritious, genius. The government should make efforts to influence what we value, by encouraging the higher aspects of man’s nature and discouraging the lower aspects.

The work of a financial analyst is ‘productive’ in that it helps to maintain the current American lifestyle. That’s a good thing if you think that late-capitalist American lifestyle is a good thing. I don’t, by a long shot.

I think we should have a market, but it should be a highly regulated one, without exploitative capitalist ownership patterns, and the government needs to feel free to correct those common occurrences in which the market produces blatantly irrational or immoral results.
Mixner Says:
October 19th, 2008 at 11:48 pm
Amit,

Jeez, Mixner, I’m not saying that wages shouldn’t be determined by the market. Of course there’s no alternative to the market. All I’m saying is that because wages are determined by the market, archaeologists earn less than pornographers, so being a winner in the wages stakes isn’t a mark of virtue.

As far as I can tell, no one has claimed it necessarily is. You’re arguing against a strawman. Being a winner in the wages stakes is a mark of being productive. And your productivity depends on how hard you work. Hence the objection to punishing hard work through excessive taxes.

I’m saying that the market can’t do everything we might wish for (make wages reflect virtue, make the lion lie down with the lamb, etc.);

Then you’re again firing blanks into territory no one has thought to occupy.

If you win a fair lottery, you deserve to be allowed to keep your winnings, but that doesn’t mean that you deserved to win.

Another strawman. Winning the lottery is the result of luck and luck is not something one deserves. Lottery winners deserve to be allowed to keep their winnings in part because they took a risk (in the case of the lottery, their stake was probably very low, but so were their odds of winning). Likewise, people who risk their time, money and/or labor to start a business, get an education, invest in a company, etc., deserve to reap the rewards if they succeed, rather than being punished by confiscatory tax rates so that furniture movers can have higher wages.
Tyro Says:
October 20th, 2008 at 12:03 am
Mixner, perhaps if you would argue against the argument people are making, rather than arguing against the one you would prefer they are making, we wouldn’t think you to be such a, ignorant, smarmy git.
Amit Says:
October 20th, 2008 at 11:13 am
Mixner,

I doubt that there’s much point in continuing this, but I’ll give it one more shot, after which I’ll leave the thread to you, if you want it.

Let’s take the last issue first. The point of the lottery example was not to compare the winner to people who haven’t bought a ticket. The winner clearly deserves to win more than non-ticket-holders. The winner has risked something and the non-ticket-holders have not. The point was to compare the winner to the other ticket-holders. The winner, though he deserves to keep his winnings, no more deserves to win than the other ticket-holders. He risked no more than they did.

The analogy with the market is this. Two people A and Bwho invest the same amount of effort, who exhibit the same positive personal qualities, or, in the classical sense, exhibit the same virtues (corresponding to two people who buy a ticket) can end up with very different levels of remuneration due to random factors. Person A might simply have been in the right place and the right time, while B was not. Person A went into finance and B went into IT; demand for services in the former held up and demand for the services in the latter tanked. Person A may deserve to keep his money but he didn’t deserve to do better than B due to his sterling personal qualities. It wasn’t luck that A did better than someone who put in no effort at all (i.e. better than someone who didn’t buy a ticket), but it was luck that he did better than B.

Person A will be more productive or efficient than B in the sense of returning more value to the company, but that is a sense in which being more productive or efficient can be a matter of luck; person A is more efficient because demand for his product happened to be higher.
which should not be confused with the sense in which being more productive or efficient is a virtue, i.e. a positive personal quality, like being hardworking. Only if being productive or efficient were a positive personal quality of that sort would it make sense to speak of A as deserving to do better than B, as opposed to deserving to be allowed to keep his lucky winnings.

Now, you say that no-one has necessarily claimed that being winner in the wages stakes is a mark of virtue. But clearly many people in the position of A claim that they deserve their success, and not just that they deserve to keep the products of luck. And that is because they are thinking of their greater remuneration as always due to their positive personal qualities, i.e. virtues, rather than sometimes being due to luck. If they are aware of the role of the difference in demand, they may attribute their greater success to the personal virtue of prescience or insight rather than dumb luck.

True, they are not affirming the obvious falsehood that being winner in the wage stakes is a mark of virtue in the narrow Sunday-school sense, the sense in which only the likes of fairness and benevolence are virtues, but that is not what I was accusing them of saying. When you say that I’m ‘firing blanks into territory no-one has occupied’ you might be thinking that I’m accusing people of affirming that obvious falsehood, but you’d be wrong.
Mixner Says:
October 20th, 2008 at 11:47 pm
Amit,

You said that the lottery winner “deserves to be allowed to keep his winnings” even though those winnings were the result of his undeserved win. So you’re acknowledging that one man can deserve to benefit over another man purely on the basis of luck, since luck is the only thing that distinguishes the winner from the other lottery ticket holders.

Under that principle, a successful worker or investor or business owner deserves to be allowed to keep the benefits of his success even if he succeeded over his competitors only through luck (rather than any kind of “virtue,” such as working harder than they did).

You’re actually a libertarian, and you don’t even seem to realize it.
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