31 January, 2024

Jobs Americans Would Do

https://americancompass.org/jobs-americans-would-do/

The celebration is not forthcoming. For all its talk about productivity, the business community’s enthusiasm for price signals and efficient market outcomes turns out to be rather selective. The implication of Bernie’s thinking is a second answer: that some jobs are better than others and should pay more. The programmer could pick lettuce if he wanted, but the farmworker cannot code. Past market outcomes were so readily celebrated because they reinforced this worldview. The phrase “jobs Americans won’t do” is so potent because, in setting out certain classes of work as beneath the dignity of the people issuing the judgment, it makes clear exactly what they really think. The irony is that, to maintain his faith that wages fairly reflect productivity, and advance his preference for a supply of low-wage labor that eases his own life and elevates his own status, the “free market” enthusiast must embrace the role of central planner overriding price signals with his own judgment of what prices should be.