<< This thread has been helpful to me in my reading Galbraith. I just had
to throw in a quip here: Does a word processor in a law firm, working 8+
hours a night, necessarily have more of a life?
>> By word processor you mean a person who does word processing. I was puzzling for a second about why we should worry about office equipment.
Look, I'm not saying you should feel sorry for yound lawyers who voluntarily make the trade off of working for the bad guys for all their waking hours for five to seven years in the hope of making partner while raking in obscvene amounts of money. It's a pain for us lawyers who don't want to do that because it distorts thw labor market and sets certain norms. But I am, not saying, Oh poor Barrington Wilkes III, late of Harvard Law, see how he doth toil at Cravath Swain, he's worse off than even the word processor! It's a choice Wilkes makes, unlike the worldprocessor. And he's well paid for it.
All that said, I think yes, the 20G a year wordprocessor who can hang up her work after 8 hrs has more of a life than Wilkes. That doesn't mean she's better off overall. But she may be able to see aned spend time with her children or husband, and otherwise do things that are not connected with her job. Wilkes--by vuirtue ofd his own choice--can't.
--jks