Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Work or Pay Systems

[melanie griffin (melgrif]

exactly my point. there are lots of factors that argue for time=money, and
lots for some people's skills being more valuable to the community than
others', and some tasks being harder than others on any scale. i  am not
suggesting, as you seem to, that each person has the same worth because
their internal flaws and skills balance out---but that we could adopt a
construct that says 1 hour of toilet cleaning=1 hour of rocket science, or
we could say that 10 hours of toilet cleaning=1 hour of rocket science and
is credited accordingly. i was just observing that there is no real
solution; it's something each community has to decide and live with.

On Thu, Jul 31, 2008 at 3:25 PM, Brian Bartholomew <bb [at] stat.ufl.edu> wrote:

>
> > We all make the money/work tradeoff, so I'm not offended by the idea
> > that some people would pay and others would work, but I do see
> > problems evaluating the worth of that work.
>
> Which aspect is a problem?  Do you want, expect, or hope that every
> individual has in sum the same amount of total value to offer?  That
> every olympic athlete, brain surgeon, or math genius has a flaw of
> corresponding strength?  That every person born with a disabling
> physical birth defect has a corresponding richness of character?
>
> Economic egalitarianism is impossible because people are *different*.
> They do not total up to be economically identical.
>
> -----
>
> > Certainly capitalism has decided that question one way, but do we
> > need to agree?
>
> The only people who need to agree are the two offering to exchange
> money for labor.  They are the ones who evaluate the worth of a
> particular piece of work (and, perhaps soon, the worth of a particular
> piece of money).
>                                                         Brian
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