Off Topic — HabitableZone

Off Topic » in reply to and when one player's salary could pay a few hundred teachers- how do you feel?

What does it matter how I feel about it?
Tom Brosz — (archived)

I wish they taught economics at schools.

The baseball industry and its associated industries (products, TV, etc.) generate many millions of dollars a year. Maybe billions.

Compare the number of people who are willing and able to teach school to the number of people who are able to hold down a position on a professional baseball team.

Do the math. Supply and demand. That's how it works.

Also, economic value and objective value are not the same things. A lot more people will pay money to see Ozzy Osborne than will pay to go see an orchestra do Beethoven's Ninth. That doesn't mean Ozzy is a better musician than Beethoven. It means a lot more people will pay money to see Ozzy Osborne than will pay to go see an orchestra do Beethoven's Ninth. Period.

Of course, one could control this by making attendance at Beethoven concerts mandatory, or limit what Ozzy can get paid for a concert. These kinds of options are attractive to those who believe that people will never make the "right" choices unless better and wiser people have a hammerlock around their necks.

If schoolteaching was a private industry instead of a controlled government semi-monopoly, there would be a wide variation of teaching salaries, and "super stars" that would command high salaries from schools willing to pay more for the best.

This, of course, would not be "fair."

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