Why are surgeons paid more than brick layers?

[FreeJoe]

183. It's all about supply and demand

No one sets the price of surgeons or brick layers...we all do. The laws of supply and demand weigh or demand for surgeons and brick layers against people's ability and desire to be surgeons and brick layers and the result is what we've got.

It is not a statement about the relative importance of either. Teachers are more important to our society than surgeons, but are paid far, far less. Becoming a teacher is much easier than becoming a surgeon and a lot more people want to be teachers than surgeons. The result is that there is a much larger supply of teachers and so the market price is much lower.

Being a brick layer is arduous and dangerous work. I certainly wouldn't want to do it. The barriers to entry are extremely low. It requires very little education or experience. Because so many people are willing to do the work, the supply is quite large and so the price is relatively low.

Nothing about this means that either is paid what they deserve. "Deservingness" is not a basis for what we pay people. That's why people that play sports that they enjoy make huge sums and people that do charity work make so little. They aren't getting paid what they deserve. They are getting paid what the market dictates they should be paid.

We could change things. We could lower the barriers to becoming a surgeon. We could subsidize the cost of going to medical school. We could reduce the education requirements. We could import more surgeons. All of those things would increase the supply and reduce the cost.

We could increase the barriers to becoming a brick layer. We could require them to be licensed. We could require them to attend special brick laying schools. We could add special permitting requirements or that they purchase a limited number of brick laying "tokens". These things would decrease the supply of brick layers. It would also raise the cost of brick laying, so demand would shift to non-brick building practices. The price of brick layers would be higher, but there would be fewer jobs for them.

It is important to remember a few things about people's pay. Market forces are the dominant forces in determining how much people get paid. That's a pretty efficient way to allocate pay and jobs. It doesn't mean that people get paid a fair wage for the work they do if, by fairness, you mean that people with similar levels of effort or risk get paid the same. If you try to ignore market forces and pay people by some doctrine of fairness, you'll wind up with shortages of people in some jobs and surpluses in others. It would be nice if the market didn't rule us the way it does. It would be nice if gravity wouldn't hurl me to the ground if I stepped off a cliff. Sadly, the world works the way the world works.