Cleaners worth more to society than bankers
A report just unveiled by think-tank the New Economics Foundation (nef) has found a robust way to calculate how much someone should be paid in relation to the value they create to society. It uses a series of measures including economic return, environmental impact, and knock-on effects for societal wellbeing. The report questions whether pay reflects the true value of different jobs and shatters some of the myths used to justify high pay. Tax accountants are said to be the most destructive, destroying £47 of social value for every £1 they create. Waste-recycling workers on the other hand, generate £12 for every £1 spent on their wages. In the case of advertising executives, the report calculates the cost to society of over-consumption. The authors quote the economist JK Galbraith who argued that advertising created socially and environmentally wasteful “wants” where needs have already been met.
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Very interesting – thanks for the find!
I’m especially curious about Galbraith’s assessment of advertising’s value in society. I like to say that advertising is a tool that can be used, or misused. Yes, it can be abhorrent (and I say this as a marketing pro myself), however without it, the price of, say, a Coke would artificially be jacked up to the highest level people could afford, since noone would be aware of the existence of Pepsi, or any other alternative choice.
Advertising is the foundation of competition, and as freedom-loving, capitalist Westerners, I think we all know where we stand on competition’s role in the economy.