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In it For the Money, But With Questions, Too
I would like to use this opportunity to explain why, precisely, I write: for the money. And indeed, as Dr. Johnson said, “No man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money.”
Admittedly, the money’s not great, but that is indeed why I do it. (Were it to do over, I might have thought of applying the same talents to corporate law. I fantasize about that fork in the road, sometimes. But I didn’t. No point in regret.) Now, when I say “I do it for the money,” oddly, people think I’m kidding. Or worse: they’re shocked. Even people who should not be. This suggests to me a taboo that really ought not exist. In fact, it’s one I’d like to stamp on, hard, forever.
It should surprise no one that I do what I do all day for the money. In fact, it is what you really hope I’m doing. Earning money. The other options are “stealing it” or “asking you for a handout.” As for the latter, that probably means you–personally. In one way or another. So, unless you feel like being the next person I touch up for a loan, you should hope I’m working as hard as I know how to earn money. Otherwise, you’re telling me you want higher taxes. (You really don’t want me applying for a government grant although; let me tell you, that is one fast and easy way for someone like me to get money.)
Now, the taboo against “being in it for the money” is probably related to another quality that should be a taboo: greed. Definitely bad. Here I’d usually say, “And a private matter, so none of your business,” but because my point here is a bit different, and not actually all about me, I’ll add a private detail. Like most people, I need money to survive, and if at all possible, to help the people I love should they ever need a handout.
That’s usually why people want to earn money. The people who do it to buy their 639th yacht with a helipad, private entertainment system, infinity pool, and solid-gold toilet seats are pretty rare. Less than one percent, I’ve heard. But rare as that is, if things are working right, they’re still paying taxes and making lots of charitable contributions, if only to maintain their image as “not greedy.” (Hence, the taboo against “greed” at the very least has tremendous utility.)
Still, greed is, in my view, not good. So I’d say, “Skip yacht number 639, and donate that money to a much more worthy cause.” That would be my moral advice. Beyond that, none of my business, really. And of course, if things are working right, they earned that money by providing a good or a service that improved someone else’s life, perhaps on a very large scale. Or inherited it from someone who did, and who has the same feelings about providing for their kids’ security as any normal human does.
So, “doing it for the money” should be anything but a taboo, and no one should be even remotely scandalized or surprised by the answer. (Yet they are. Repeatedly. As if they expected me to say, “I do it because I genuinely believe my talents are so impressive that one day Boswell will write my biography, and thus I must leave this legacy to all posterity.” Or as if they expected me to say, “I do it because I am so passionately committed to free markets that I’d forget what they’re about.”)
As it happens, there are many things I won’t write for any amount of money. (Yes, I’ve been offered. The answer has been, “No, thank you.”) Money isn’t the only thing that guides my decisions. It is, however, what guides most peoples’ decisions, most of the time, as well it should be. When things are working right, “making money” is directly connected to “supporting yourself,” “not taking someone else’s money,” “supporting your family,” and “providing people with goods and services they want.”
So let’s clear up that mystery: I am paid to be here. I am grateful to have an opportunity to work hard, earn some money, and do so in a way that’s fun and consistent with what I believe.
As for those paying to be here: I am here to serve you. You are the customer, and you, in fact, are my boss. So you’d better believe I’m listening very closely when you tell me what you want. Studying it at if my life depends on it. Because it does. I, for one, have entirely selfish motives for caring about whether our customers are happy. You can put a lot of faith in my greed and selfishness. That — plus a bit of good contract law, solid institutions, and defending the realm — is how it’s supposed to work.
But for now, let’s now make this thread more interesting. I believe in free markets. But also believe in places where they fail. The most interesting conversations people “on the right” can have, I suspect, are ones in which there is a real debate about these.
This thread is now open for your nomination of the single most non-Pareto-optimal situation in America today — or any other country that interests you — and your argument for this being the case.
Me? I nominate the media. As a member of it. I have no idea how to solve this problem in a way consistent with the principles of “freedom of expression” and “no, we will not have a state-run media, thank you very much.”
Your candidates?
Published in General
Mike Rowe did a whole thing on the pitfalls of “following your passion.” He argues the merits of doing what you and I have done- settling into careers that afford us the financial security to enjoy life outside of work. I don’t know about you, but I don’t regret my decision at all. Fortunately, I really like medicine, and find it to be very fulfilling, even when my patients act crazy.
https://www.google.ca/search?q=haiti+entrepreneur&tbm=nws
Really? Really?! Your parents would have thrown up their hands in despair and cried “but who will teach our daughter to read?!”
Value, though, is a subjective judgement. The buyer of a luxury yacht must place some value on it in exchange for his money. Whether anyone else sees any value in it cannot be our concern. Moreover, through the forces of the market he is bidding (indirectly) against others who would use the yacht-building resources (labor, raw materials, skills, etc), so if other things were more valuable than the yacht construction then people would already have bought them.
To use your analogy of the chairs, what is context of your chair madness? The 99 chairs are only “wasted” if never put to any other use. If you sell them, you’d be able to buy that table and a dinner to go with it. If you hoard them, then obviously you value them more than that dinner or table.
It seems we refer to the free-market like it is a system when it is really more of a fluid substance like water. Water is useful only when it is contained or channeled – like in a cup or canal.
Conservatives always seem to miss this point. Free-market solutions can usually be applied but only within an environment that will accept their application. That environment probably won’t arise on its own.
So I guess my answer is nothing ain’t never gonna work.
Is it?
First headline: Entrepreneur shot dead.
Should we buy his chair?
This is manifestly inaccurate.
If a person voluntarily chooses to pay for a boat, it IS creating value – by definition! It may not be what YOU value, but you are not the person who has to pay for it!
Nobody voluntarily pays their own money for busywork. But if they choose to pay for a private jet, then it is worth, to them, at least what they paid for it!
Of course it is. There is no purely objective metric of the value of anything at all. So why not allow individuals to set their own values?
Clearly, there’s a business opportunity for the provision of security.
Yes, of course it is, that’s rather the whole point of much of micro economics.
It is also why socialism is so poisonous and foul to all it touches. Socialism claims (among other things) to be able to dictate prices based on some concept of intrinsic or innate economic values, which is why they’re always blathering about how wages are too unfairly low, or too unfairly high, or why rent-control is somehow so necessary. Why these price controls always fail is because the value of a wage, or a house, or a meal, changes constantly, and is different for every person, profession, or circumstance.
Here’s a very simple mental exercise to illustrate the point: How much would you pay for a pair of jeans? $30? $50? $200? You can find jeans at all of these price points. Why? Well, the $30 Wranglers that I buy last maybe 2 years, but those $200 jeans are a very tough selvage weave that could last (with care) decades. I value my money over fashion and fabric quality, but obviously some people value the $200 pairs for their durability, fashion, or “Made in USA” cache.
A wonderful summation. :)
Here’s another mental exercise on the subjectivity of value:
How much should I charge for my products?
My products cost $X to produce – what is the “right” price? Is there a universal formula? Is there some eternal standard by which to declare my price “fair” or “unfair”?
Now that’s greed!
What is money?
No, but neither of them would have been able to provide me with what I got at the University of Washington. Reading, for sure. And a lot more. But I got even more than than that. A lot more than either of my parents know, however educated they are or were. Not much of a substitute for what you could get at a good state university in the 1980s–and did. And had to, to graduate. My parents played a huge role in helping me figure out that some optional classes were not worth taking, and some hard-but-not required ones were.
I did drop the graduate seminar on Tarski–too hard; still too young and lazy–but it was there. (That one, oddly, is one I could also have had at home. But I doubt most people could have.)
If I’d wanted to study medicine? I know they could not have taught me that at home. But I’d have received a first-rate premed education there.
Money is the measure of value.
You haven’t answered my question.
But to address money: Money is merely a way of keeping score, it is nothing more than a medium of exchange and has no value in itself. It can only tell you what others are willing to pay, at a given moment, for goods or services. Money has no objective value, so you can’t say it is an objective measurement of anything, only another subjective measurement of value.
Let’s face it, nobody really cares how the economic system delivers guitars or yachts. Instead, we care about how the economic system delivers fundamental needs. How does a market work when the goods aren’t chosen by choice but are required? How about housing? Healthcare? Education? Those are things that are needed by everyone, and therefore an economic system should make available to everyone.
The problem with those fundamental needs is that they cost a lot of money to produce, more than most people can afford at any one time. So, we’ve addressed that disparity by a system of financing. But financing has rules of its own, and these rules are based on risk management, and may not make sense in the modern world. For instance, housing may be a constant, life-long need, but financing the house may insist on the homeowner being employed … constantly … throughout the life of the mortgage. Who can guarantee that, these days?
The big “failures” we’re worried about are failures in financing large needs. When the housing market collapsed, it was largely a collapse of financing. Obamacare is an attempt (a poor one) in financing a large need. Now we’re about to try financing another large need, education.
Financing large needs is a basic function of our economy that we should rethink.
Fine, buy the darn boat.
But should someone buy a boat? Should someone buy a boat rather than build a school in Haiti?
Economics tells us nothing about we should do. It is only a study of a certain aspect of the things we do do.
No, we should stop trying to meddle with these things at all. Any attempt on the part of government to “finance large needs” ends in disaster.
Saying “everyone needs a home” is all well and good, but what kind of home are we talking about? Does everyone need the same kind of home? Does everyone even WANT the same kind of home? Who counts as “everyone”? Singles? Married couples? Children? Allocate so many square feet per person? Do you really want to tempt the central planning fetishists with that kind of power?
Look, Sweden tried this guaranteed housing thing back in the 1960’s and it was an unmitigated disaster, socialist countries the world over have tried it with food, education, jobs, housing, you name it and it is always a mess.
The failures have not been in financing, they have been in constant meddling.
Well, exactly. The value of the thing is real, the money measures it.
You are the height you are, the ruler measures it.
Where are we going with this?
We’re getting a lot of ideas mixed up here.
Well, if you get the money I’m certain you’d build the school instead of buying the boat, but that’s because you value a Haitian school more than a luxury boat.
The hell I do!
Two responses:
Of course, preventing politicians from mucking up the country – I’m all for that!
I think you are missing the point – a ruler is an objective measurement, there is a scientific definition of an inch or a centimeter.
Money has no objective value – what is a dollar? Is there a scientific standard for $1.00 that you can measure and verify? There is not.
Your statement: “The value of the thing is real, the money measures it” is wrong. The value is subjective and fluid, there is no objective value to any object, only what others are willing to pay for it. If I have an object for sale, and you bid $100, is that its value? What if someone else offers $101? Is that the new value? Suppose you then counter at $150?
Clearly you valued it for more than your initial offer of $100, else you would not have later offered $150. So even your own valuation is apparently fluid.
Nothing more than a convenient method of exchange, reducing transaction costs for goods and services.
The answer to your fundamental question of course lies in both government controlled central banks and within governments. Keynes surmised that borrowing, if funded by the governed, created liquidity that could be used to create demand (redistribution or government purchases) and overcome temporary economic downturns, repaid when the downturns recede with tax revenue on new economic activity. What he failed to surmise was the idea of permanent capital in the form of borrowing growing to make interest one of the government’s largest and most intransigent expenditures. Securitization of the so called “social security trust fund” is simply another borrowing. However, the government, like all debtors, can only refinance so much debt and it, like the private sector, must compete for capital. But wait, the government has a captive bank that can issue currency and dictate interest rates.
We are walking into dangerous waters here.
It may well be the better use of their money, sure. Who are you to decide what people should and should not do with their money? After all, if you accept that someone else can know better, then you accept that the government can dictate what you do with what you used to think was your money.
Of course. Economics is mostly descriptive; its prescriptive powers are quite limited.