[FredPret]

The market doesn't dictate reality - it is part of reality.

If a skill isn't needed, there won't be a demand for it, and it won't pay well, no matter how many years of learning and personal growth are required to acquire the skill.

The big bad market refusing to pay historians a good wage is just society's built-in mechanism for trying to guide people into doing things that are most needed.

A lot of the humanities were historically aimed at rich kids who don't need to engage with the labour market; we really shouldn't be encouraging middle-class kids to take on a mountain of student debt when they should be focusing on maximizing their earnings.

[nonrandomstring]

Your explanation is an exemplar of constrained thinking. Thinking inside the box, or having limited horizons [0].

You start off correctly; markets are "part of reality". That rightly implies some other "rest of reality", does it not?

You then define all value only within the limited logic of markets. And wish to a universalise it as "society's built-in mechanism".

Mathematics is a "humanity". Reading some, you'll gain understanding of Gödel, Whitehead and Russell who would alert you to the logic that a system can't deal with what's outside itself.

Markets are a system. A very simplified one.

Humanities are precisely that project that transcends simple models like markets. Humanities attempt to cover a bigger, meta-reality. It has nothing to do with "rich kids". Some of the greatest philosophers, writers and scientists (what we call 'STEM' now was once "natural philosophy") were dirt poor.

To be more frank, to think only about markets and "maximising earnings" is stubborn, insular and self-limiting. It's a great way to stay cloistered and never contribute anything of value to the world.

Sure we have professional economists. But not everyone should reduce them-self to the level of economics.

[0] EDIT: these are not words meant to insult or belittle - they are to mean exactly what they mean on face value. There is no 'shame' in thinking with limited horizons, or seeing in an involuted way if you've been exposed to nothing else but are open minded to imagine there is more to the world.

[badpun]

> You then define all value only within the limited logic of markets.

Not all value, just monetary one. There's plenty of valueable activities that do not pay much or even a dime. However, the discussion revolved about making a living, not what's valueable in the abstract. And, regarding making a living, it's true that plenty more people want to be paid as historians that other people have a need for.

[nonrandomstring]

I respectfully acknowledge that you aren't the parent to whom I was responding and that you're jumping in with your own contribution.

But I do not think the "discussion revolved about making a living" Indeed, it's something of an irritating HN trope/style to try steering the narrative by telling other people what the "discussion is actually all about"

As I see it the main theme here was the low social status of academic work in general.

I realise, and sympathise, that a lot of HN posters are deeply anxious about "making a living".

My disagreement with the parent is the claim that "the market" is:

  "" just society's built-in mechanism for trying to guide people into
     doing things that are most needed. ""

Markets are awful at determining what is "needed". They're great at figuring out how to satisfy people's superficial desires and great at making money. Look around you. Millions of people doing pointless make-work jobs in advertising and "the financial industry". Meanwhile, we keep failing to solve the most elementary challenges of a sustainable, healthy environment, which is surely a fundamental need.

For me, this where Neo-liberalism falls flat. Markets cannot tell society anything about what is needed. Society must tell markets what is needed... however we achieve that. And so to see things only from within the frame of "market think" is to remain blind to most of reality.

[FredPret]

Markets aren’t telling society what is needed.

Markets are society telling itself what is needed.

People want lots of plumbers, so they pay for it. Not many people want to be plumbers, so they get paid a lot.

People want one or two historians, so they vote and pay tax for it. Lots and lots of students would rather be historians than plumbers, so they don’t get paid a lot.

If you want people to want a sustainable economy, be less smug and judgemental and convince them to vote and pay for it.

[nonrandomstring]

I'd be very curious to know how old you are, where you were educated and how you got these ideas.

The idea that markets literally are society seems not only wrong to me, but an extremist and quite dangerous idea.

Instead of spending time convincing random people to vote for plumbers of historians, I'd rather convince one person to take a wider look at the world and question the views they've been raised on.

Is there even the slightest possibility that you're wrong? That maybe society is more than just "markets"?

[FredPret]

Wow!

I don't agree with your political positions so clearly the problem is with me. I'm too old, too young, uneducated, or educated in the wrong place.

First of all, I'm surprised you can't see the simple truth that markets are an emergent property of any community. You yourself are part of various markets - every time you choose from an array of options, even if they're all free; every time you produce anything at all, you're in a market. That this isn't obvious to you makes me question why I bother talking to you.

Second of all, your attitude is absolutely smug and insufferable. You're convincing a negative number of people to see things your way. It's so wild to me that an entire half of the political spectrum in the West adopts this attitude, and when they lose there's an immense wailing and gnashing of teeth about how the other side is brainwashed. Meanwhile, the answer to their problems is in the mirror.

[currymj]

the problem is that having a healthy community of scholars doing good historical research using sophisticated methods, produces a lot of positive externalities. most people never engage with it but having such people around does limit historical bullshit. this has been good for society. but it's now falling apart.

[FredPret]

I agree it’s a positive, but each one of us has to sell our value-add to the rest of society. This is actually a wonderful constraint to have because it keeps each of us in touch with the rest of humanity

[hobs]

Except for all the people that are born rich, they don't have to do anything.

[FredPret]

But becoming a historian is a good option for them.

[badpun]

Is it really falling apart? The US universities hire many, probably thousans or even tens of thosands, of excellent history professors. What's the problem with it?