• canni@lemmy.one
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    1 year ago

    Except some skills are much harder to learn and some skills are much more valuable to society than others. I would argue the hard to learn, more valuable to society ones are “better”. I don’t think the people performing them are better or worse, but it’s fair to elevate and celebrate certain jobs over others.

    • unfreeradical@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Some skills are associated with greater barrier to acquisition, or are considered as higher in social value, but both attributes are inherently nebulous and overall unquantifiable.

      Characterizing certain skills as better, though, based on such comparisons, even if, for the sake or argument, the validity of such comparisons were conceded, is simply a subjective appeal without any meaning deeper than personal preference or bald assertion.

      Within the current system of labor organization, by which labor is commodified within the relations between worker and business, labor is valorized not by value to society, with every member of society participating equally in resolving a value for each kind of labor, but rather by the value of workers’ labor toward business interests captured beneath the profit motive, that is, value expressly to the owners of business.

      • canni@lemmy.one
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        1 year ago

        My man, this is not an argument for or against capitalism.

        If two skills are of relatively close societal value, and one is harder to do, learn and master, that craft deserves more respect.

        This is not a reflection of any individual.

        • unfreeradical@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Society is not uniform or monolithic. Society has structure, including various relations based on interests that may be shared or antagonist.

          Social value is not intrinsic to skill, nor to any other target of valorization, but rather determined from processes of valorization bound to the surrounding social systems.

          It is unequivocal that our society valorizes labor not for benefit shared generally across the public, but specifically for its value to private business.

          It is also questionable that a skill itself may carry a demand for respect that is separable from respect as understood by having a personal target.