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if they're as easily replaced as you say, they won't be very well compensated for long.


'Easily' in terms of labor. But it was only possible to create an opening for that labor with the use of law - i.e. collective action. Just like how FAT32 is also easily replaced, yet Microsoft reaped patent profits from it for decades. There are countless other such parasites.


It seems pretty naive to think these market mechanisms are the primary factors affecting wages. Maybe this is the case in the US, certainly not in Europe. Otherwise teachers and caregivers would earn at least as much as engineers.

Top managers wages are completely fictitious. Investors generally don't care though, since it is basically nothing compared to turnover as a whole.


In the US there’s an excess of teachers (unsure about caregivers) and it seems the market forces are expectedly causing low salaries.

I believe as an American I’m missing some important context to understand this comment.


Context: A lot of countries in Europe have problems filling positions with teachers and caregivers, because younger people tend to evade these careers because of bad economic conditions and huge workloads.


I would say that is still market mechanisms affecting wages.

The purchasers (taxpayers) are not willing to pay sufficient wages in order to incentivize [the right] people to pursue it as a career.


It's my opinion that taxpayers are the worst people to drive business decisions around education. The median tax payer will only care about education quality and availability for around 15 of their ~40 years as a tax payer.

For those remaining 25 years, they will tend to prioritize money in their pockets over a teacher's salary; a situation that does not align with the betterment of our society at large.


A million dollar teacher won't be able to do their job effectively if the child lives in a broken environment, so it's something that has to be attacked from all angles simultaneously, from the teachers, to providing the child's parents (and neighbors) with economic opportunities (and/or educating them), and even then it would be a slow process taking effect over generations, so no politician could claim it. Seems almost impossible to accomplish in a democracy.


There are plenty of million dollar teachers, but they work in private tutoring or corporate education positions.

The million dollar teachers will do things like actively manage the student's home life or business trajectory, give them personalized curricula, connect them with opportunities to gain hands-on experience, etc.

Not saying you're wrong re: the incentives or anything, but a lot of people don't even know this segment of the market exists.


There's an excess of programmers too. Oh, good programmers are scarce? Good teachers are scarce too


>Good teachers are scarce too

You have named the very reason the teachers are angrily protesting any and all attempts at evaluation of teachers' productivity. Or introduction of private (i.e., market-based) schools competing with the state run ones.




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