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Why are teachers and other talkers paid less than engineers and other doers?

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The meme below makes fun of unionized public school teachers, who feel entitled to the same salary and benefits as doctors, software engineers, etc. in the private sector. So, the point of this meme is simple, it’s to point out that the teachers who belong to teacher unions are ignorant of basic economics, specifically, the law of supply and demand.

Basic Economics: Prices are set by supply and demand
Basic Economics: In a free market, prices are set by supply and demand

When there is more demand for a product or service than there is a supply for it, then prices go up. When there is more supply for a product or service than there is a demand for it, prices go down.

A good place to see this explained is in a book by famous black economist Thomas Sowell. Thomas Sowell has written many books, but he wrote one book in particular for people who have no knowledge of basic economics. It’s called “Basic Economics: A Citizen’s Guide to the Economy“. And the first few chapters explain how prices are set by supply and demand:

  1. What is Economics?
  2. The Role of Prices
  3. Price Controls
  4. An Overview of Prices

It turns out that there are two views of how wages are set in an economy:

The labor theory of value (LTV) is a theory of value that argues that the economic value of a good or service is determined by the total amount of “socially necessary labor” required to produce it.

LTV is usually associated with Marxian economics… The LTV is central to Marxist theory, which holds that the working class is exploited under capitalism, and dissociates price and value. Marx did not refer to his own theory of value as a “labour theory of value”.

Mainstream neoclassical economics tends to reject the need for a LTV, concentrating instead on a theory of price determined by supply and demand.

Marxists economists believe that the value of a good or service is determined by the “social utility” of the work produced. But classical (“free market”) economists believe that value is determined by the scarcity of the good or service relative to the demand from consumers.

So, a Marxist economist might say “teaching English to 5 year olds is valuable because it is relevant and meaningful”. But, a classical economist would say “conducting a security audit on distributed point-of-sale system is valuable, because very few people can do it, but many people want it”.

I’ve noticed that school teachers and non-STEM university students and professors are very likely  to hold to the labor theory of prices and wages. Robert Nozick wrote a paper about why this happens. It turns out that “wordsmiths” (his word) are conditioned by their performance in the classroom to expect success in the free market economy. But when they find that their “brilliance” in English poetry, Medieval history, or lesbian dance theory has no value to anyone else, they complain that the economy is being manipulated by powerful people. Marxism is a coping mechanism for people who value academic acclaim more than doing something useful for their neighbors. The Marxists study easy things that no one cares about, and then they can’t get paid because millions of people can do them. The free market people focus on the customer, so they study hard things like computer science and petroleum engineering that are in demand from customers. And they get paid more.

Starting and Mid-Career salaries by profession (click for larger image)
Starting and Mid-Career salaries by profession (click for larger image)

Consider this article from College Pulse about a survey of 10,590 undergraduate students:

Students with certain majors are far more likely than their peers to approve of socialism. Philosophy majors, in particular, have a positive view of socialism. Nearly 8 in 10 (78%) say they view the economic system favorably, followed by 64% of anthropology majors, and 58% of both English and international relations majors. Accounting and finance majors are least likely to view socialism positively (20% and 22% respectively).

Do you know what accounting and finance students have to study? Basic economics.

As soon as I got my first job as a software engineer, and finished my study of Christian apologetics, the very next thing I studied was economics. It was Dr. Jay Richards who got me interested in it, when I heard him speaking about economics in an apologetics lecture for Stand to Reason. I contacted him, and he recommended the works of two famous economists, F. A. Hayek and Thomas Sowell. And that’s what I want to recommend to you, too. Our continued liberty and prosperity depends on ordinary Americans taking the time to educate themselves about basic economics.

News

Young women vote Democrat, then complain about Democrat policies

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If I had to boil down the wisdom of my years into one sentence, that sentence would be “you must not advocate for anything that will eventually harm you”. Sadly, we live in a world of virtue signaling. People want to advocate for things that feel good in the moment, even if it hurts them in the long run.

Let’s start with this story from New York Post:

A series of women have posted alarming TikTok reports about being randomly punched by a stranger while walking in New York, including at least two daylight attacks reported to cops this week.

Halley Kate… posted a video Monday after one attack being investigated by the NYPD, saying it caused her to fall to the ground and black out.

“You guys, I was literally just walking, and a man came up and punched me in the face,” Kate said through tears in a post on Monday morning.

And again:

A woman named Mikayla Toninato, whose bio said she attends Greenwich Village’s Parsons School of Design, tagged Kate in a post six hours later, where she recounted a similar story.

“I just got punched in the face, walking home,” the TikToker claimed.

And again:

Another woman named Oliva Brand took to the platform on March 17 to report the same experience, in a clip filmed on Mulberry Street in Nolita.

[…]The NYPD confirmed the narratives of Kate and Brand, saying that a 23-year-old woman reported an assault at West 16th Street and 7th Avenue at 10:20 a.m. Monday, as with Kate’s report.

[…]On March 17, a 25-year-old was walking her dog just before noon at Kenmare and Mulberry streets when an “unknown individual punched her in the head,” according to officials when asked about Brand’s video.

[…]The recent complaints echoed the purported plight of a fourth young female TikToker, Jill Burke, who said on Feb. 8 she was attacked near Union Square and that the suspect was arrested and released on his own recognizance.

Now, whenever I hear stories like this, I always wonder “what is the context of this story? Is the victim leaving out facts that make them less of a victim?” and also “was a police report filed?”. The police report is important, because although there are no consequences for making false accusations, there are consequences for filing a false police report. And the police will look for evidence to confirm or deny the victim’s story. In this case, we have police reports for all of these attacks, so they are likely to be true.

In response to all this violence, feminists are asking: “why don’t the good men save women from the bad men?” They want chivalry, even after killing chivalry by advocating for feminism. Chivalry is absolutely out of the question for good men today – it’s too risky.

Here’s a story from Fox News:

As Marine veteran Daniel Penny watched an erratic homeless man allegedly threaten to murder terrified passengers on a New York City subway — including women and children — he said he felt a moral obligation to act.

[…]Penny, 24, dragged Jordan Neely, 30, to the floor of a northbound F train on May 21, and put him in a chokehold that was caught on cellphone video. Neely ended up dead.

“If [Neely] had carried out his threats, he would have killed somebody,” said Penny, who remains so traumatized by the experience he has not boarded a subway train since.

He’s facing a prison sentence of 5 to 15 years, now.

More:

Neely’s death spurred widespread protests across the city with many demonstrators and even politicians calling Penny a “murderer” and a racist. Penny is White; Neely was Black.

“The majority of the people on that train that I was protecting were minorities, so it definitely hurts a lot to be called that,” Penny said. “It has obviously taken a toll.”

Celebrity civil rights activist Rev. Al Sharpton gave a eulogy at Neely’s funeral blasting the decision not to arrest Penny on the spot.

This shouldn’t be unfamiliar to us. Democrats love to criminalize gun ownership and self-defense by law-abiding people. They want criminals to have space to commit crimes with impunity. They don’t want the criminals to be interrupted by law-abiding people with legally-owned firearms.

I can tell you right now that I would not lift a finger to save people in New York City from the consequences of their actions. They vote for Democrats, they live in Democrat cities, and they have to live with the results of their actions. When I was doing my concealed carry permit, the instructor, a former police officer, warned us to never step in to defend anyone else but ourselves, and only from an “imminent threat of death or serious bodily injury”. The legal consequences could be extremely damaging, he said. In the old days, before criminals became the darlings of the secular left, good men would step in. But not any more.

It’s significant that young women are complaining about crime. Young women are voting for soft-on-crime policies these days – they are all in favor of open borders, soft-on-crime policies, Hamas terrorists, gun bans, and punishing Good Samaritans.

Financial Times reports: (archived)

In the US, Gallup data shows that after decades where the sexes were each spread roughly equally across liberal and conservative world views, women aged 18 to 30 are now 30 percentage points more liberal than their male contemporaries. That gap took just six years to open up.

[…]The #MeToo movement was the key trigger, giving rise to fiercely feminist values among young women who felt empowered to speak out against long-running injustices.

[…]In the US, UK and Germany, young women now take far more liberal positions on immigration and racial justice than young men, while older age groups remain evenly matched. The trend in most countries has been one of women shifting left while men stand still.

They don’t seem to be able to see the long-term consequences of their voting. Being “compassionate” works “in the moment”, and that rush of good feelings and social approval is what they choose. Later on, they can complain about the results of their voting, and paint themselves as innocent victims. “The world is so unpredictable!”

I think that these young secular leftist women would benefit from reading C.S. Lewis’ essay “Men Without Chests”, and maybe ask their wise elders what long term consequences to actions will be.

News

Ron DeSantis signs legislation banning squatters on private property

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A squatter is someone who enters a building without permission and proceeds to live in it, without any ownership or rental agreement. It’s legal in many blue and purple states, and even in some red states. So, if you go on vacation for a few weeks, you might return to find people living in your home. In this post, we’ll see an example of “squatting”, and then see how Florida dealt with squatting.

From the New York Post, an example of what squatting looks like in a blue state, with a blue mayor, and a blue governor:

A New York City property owner recently ended up in handcuffs following a fiery standoff with alleged squatters who she has been trying to boot from her family’s home, tense footage shows.

Adele Andaloro, 47, was nabbed after changing the locks last month on the $1 million home in Flushing, Queens, that she says she inherited from her parents when they died, ABC’s Eyewitness News reported.

[…]Andaloro claims the ordeal erupted when she started the process of trying to sell the home last month but realized squatters had moved in — and brazenly replaced the entire front door and locks.

She said she got fed up, and went to her family’s home on 160th Street — with the local TV outlet in tow — on Feb. 29 and called a locksmith to change the locks for her.

[…]In New York City, a person can claim “squatter’s rights” after just 30 days of living at a property.

Under the law, it is illegal for the homeowner to change the locks, turn off the utilities, or remove the belongings of the “tenants” from the property.

They’re not really “tenants”, as they haven’t signed a lease. But what else would you expect from a sanctuary state, which is home to sanctuary cities?

More:

“By the time someone does their investigation, their work, and their job, it will be over 30 days and this man will still be in my home,” Andaloro said.

“I’m really fearful that these people are going to get away with stealing my home,” she added.

[…]Following a flurry of 911 calls, responding cops told Andaloro she had to sort the saga out in housing court because it was considered a “landlord-tenant issue.”

Andaloro was ultimately given an unlawful eviction charge because she had changed the locks and hadn’t provided a new key to the person staying there, the NYPD confirmed to The Post.

She was slapped with a criminal court summons, cops added.

So, if you’re the legal owner of a property in New York, people who don’t own it can move in, and then you get arrested for changing the locks to keep them out. It’s New York.

This article from Florida’s Voice explains what happens in Florida:

Gov. Ron DeSantis signed anti-squatter legislation on Wednesday, seeking to combat individuals who illegally reside in a house that they do not own or pay rent for.

The bill would allow law enforcement to remove squatters who can’t produce a notarized lease signed by the landowner or proof that they are paying rent for the property.

Additionally, there would be penalties for individuals who produce fraudulent leases that are commonly used by squatters.

Rep. Kevin Steele, R-Dade City, sponsored HB 621 and Sen. Keith Perry, R-Gainesville, championed the Senate version.

If Ron DeSantis were elected President in 2024, then I assume this sort of law would be enacted, and apply to all 50 states.

Related posts on DeSantis’ achievements