tomatoes / chalupas up .034 cents ?

[Gar Lipow]

On Date: Wed, 24 Jul 2002 14:55:49  "Justin Schwartz" <jkschw at hotmail.com> wrote
> 
> I'd write philosophy and legal theory for free. I do. Apart from pro bono 
> work, I would not write legal briefs for free. I like it, but it is hard, 
> relentless, grinding work. Long hours, little sleep. It is, in fact, 
> physically demanding. You just try three straight weeks of 15 hours days, 
> and that's 15 hrs of work, not sitting on your duff. Btw you CAN pay lawyers 
> what they are worth. We're not Einstein. Even when we're Kunstler. Who made 
> his bucks shilling for megacorps, mostly oil biz. Charged them a pretty 
> penny too. If you care about your outcomes, you will pay them what they are 
> worth too.
> 
> People have taken your view with teachers, you can't pay them what they are 
> worth, so why try, indeed, the ingrates, they should do it for love. Part of 
> the result is that good people don't go into teaching. I have no beef with 
> paying lots more for hard, dirty, dangerous, or repetitive work. But I don't 
> accept the resentment involved in the idea that people who work in offices 
> shouldn't be paid decently, they should do it for love.
> 
> jks
> 
> 

Agreed that teachers and lawyers and tomato pickeres should all be paid 
a fair price for their labor, and not expected to do it for love. But I 
do have some questions in terms of relative difficulty of the jobs involved.

1) Is it inherent in the nature of legal briefs that they have to be 
written 15 hours a day for three weeks staights? Is there something 
about procudeing them that would prevent a decently set up society from 
allowing more writers of legal briefs to put in few hours?

2) If you were offered the same pay per hour, and the same number of 
hours per year, and the same schedule, which job would you prefer:

A) writing legal briefs?
B) stoop labor picking tomatos?
C) Cashier at a busy Walmart?