Not Everyone Can Be a Barista or a CEO
/As I’ve expressed in other writing, we have a definitional problem with work. That is, we don’t seem to have a good grasp on what counts as work and what the value of some work is. Layered on top of this buffoonery are market-based beliefs around how pay is determined.
We claim that we pay money for jobs based on the labor supply. That is to say, we pay more money for jobs where there are fewer qualified workers, and less money for jobs that anyone could do. (Sorry stay-at-home moms).
I’d like to examine this, though. While it may, in some people’s opinion, take less skill to be a barista than a CEO (latte art not-withstanding) is it really a job just anyone can do?
To be a barista requires a certain disposition. You have to enjoy interacting with a wide variety of people with varying inter-personal dynamics, some of whom may want to boss you around, which a CEO would never have to put up with. A barista has to like working odd hours, on their feet much of the day, maintaining proper food handling conditions, listening to the corporate mandated smooth jazz on repeat.
Even if he could physically perform the tasks of a barista, could Jeff Bezos actually do the job? Would he be happy in the job? Does he have the right disposition? I wouldn’t claim every barista loves or even likes their job, but to claim they should make less because there are a lot of people who could physically carry out the tasks of the job seems ludicrous to me.
Think of all the attention that has been paid to police in the last couple years. It seems apparent that even though there are people who can perform the tasks of police officers, it doesn’t mean they are all suited to job.
Similarly, not everyone is suited to be a CEO. Not to take anything away from Jeff Bezos in that regard. But to look at the argument from the side of short supply, CEOs get paid a lot of money because there are far fewer “qualified” people for those roles.
Of course, there are also far fewer of those roles to begin with. When a barista complains about their wage, you’ll often hear people say something to the tune of “well you need to work hard, work your way up the ladder.” But there are only so many CEO positions out there. Not everyone can work their way up to those positions, even if they’re qualified.
And it’s not just CEOs, I’d harken back to the classic Fermi Problem “How many piano tuners are there in Chicago?” which you can estimate fairly precisely because an economy can only support so many piano tuners. Just like an economy can only support so many CEOs, garbage men, lawyers, artists, or waiters.
To pretend that someone gets paid solely based on the market and their value within it is to ignore so many other factors, including disposition which I’ve argued above but also race, gender, class, etc., that the market assertion is risible in its absurdity.
