[falcolas]

Hard work only increases the chance for opportunities, to a certain ceiling. It is not, however, the only factor. Or even the most important factor.

Let's use a few sterotypes for examples: A hard working trucker will take years to set aside $10,000 in savings. An average programmer at a financial institution can do the same in months. A debutante able hire a stock broker to invest their slush fund can do the same in hours.

The trucker, in terms of advancement and opportunities, will probably max out at running their own owner-operator business. Maybe they'll get really lucky and be able to employ other drivers as well.

The programmer can probably keep raising their pay by hopping jobs every few years, until they can retire by playing the financial market with his savings.

The debutante just keeps being a debutante.

We could call the trucker the successful one - they ended up with their own business. And there's a cost, too. All of that long haul driving and manual labor moving freight has left them with severe, if managable, back pain. However in terms of capital, in terms of being able to pay for a loved one's fight against cancer, the truck driver isn't even a blip on the radar.

[kaolti]

I understand and sympathise with that example. But surely you agree that not all lines of work can be equally compensated.

That doesn't mean that hard work is ineffective and a lie though?

[s73v3r_]

It kinda does. If the "types" of work that get compensated well enough for success are arbitrarily chosen, then that indicates that hard work itself is a lie.

[aantix]

What evidence do you cite that they are arbitrarily chosen?

[s73v3r_]

I think you need to provide evidence that they are not. But for my evidence, I would put forth important positions, like teachers, being grossly underpaid as evidence that they are arbitrarily chosen.

[malvosenior]

It’s not arbitrary at all. The market sets pricing, it’s not magic. If we fully deregulated education I bet you’d see teacher’s salaries rise. Of course then only the wealthy would get an education but it’s disingenuous to suggest demand and its impact on price is “arbitrary”.

[falcolas]

By the market, do you mean the government? Because they set the budget for education, and that budget determines how much money is available to pay teachers with.

Or do you mean the voters, who typically vote down attempts to increase the money for education budgets - typically because most taxpayers don't have children active in education.

There are no market forces at work here whatsoever.

> If we fully deregulated education I bet you’d see teacher’s salaries rise.

One can look at private schools (including universities) and see this is not the case. The pay does increase slightly, but nowhere near proportionally to the value provided. A lot of that extra money provided by private citizens for their children's education is absorbed by bureaucracy (and football).

[s73v3r_]

Saying "The market sets pricing" is admitting that it's arbitrary.

"If we fully deregulated education I bet you’d see teacher’s salaries rise."

I don't, not by a long shot.

"it’s disingenuous to suggest demand and its impact on price is “arbitrary”."

But that's not what I'm suggesting. Demand for teachers is pretty high. Pay has not risen to meet that demand, however. Demand for software engineers is also high, but only in some places has that demand correlated with a rise in salary.

It is completely arbitrary.

[andrei_says_]

Positing that hard work guarantees anything is the lie. It is a narrative that has been perpetuated by all those who benefit by exploiting hard work.

Smart work ought to be more beneficial than hard work but the narrative focuses on “hard work” with connotations of pushing oneself beyond one’s comfort zone and limits, which implies increased exploit-ability.

It is an immoral statement which left without investigation causes suffering and inequality for many.

Hard work depletes the worker and is therefore ineffective as it creates an imbalance which that person, their family etc. need to pick up. This balance is not reflected by the accounting of the employer so economically it is hard to detect.

[falcolas]

Well, no, I'd say that it means that the line of work matters much more than the amount of work put into it.

Between two salesmen in the B2B industry, the amount of work put forward will create a difference in their overall pay. But both salesmen will make more than the hardest working waiter or waitress.

[FranzFerdiNaN]

Of course they can. It's a political choice not to.