Teacher or Athlete: Who is more valuable?

Posted by india in EconomicsJul 20th, 2007 | no responses
All of us have heard the complaint: we pay our teachers so low while
those rich spoilt brat athletes take home astronomical salaries.
Interesting article Rich Athletes, Poor Teachers by Dan McLaughlin discusses why.

Why do professional athletes make so much more money
than, say, professional teachers? Do people really value sports more
than they value education? Teachers provide a service that is generally
accepted as contributing real value to the development of society. Some
people view sports, however, as superfluous. They think of it as
something that society could function well without. It doesn’t seem to
make sense that work deemed important by most people could be valued
far less than that which may be unnecessary or seen as frivolous to
many.

This is similar to a paradox of old: Why are diamonds so expensive
and water so cheap, when water is absolutely essential to the life of
every human, and diamonds are basically luxuries that every person is
capable of living very well without? The answer is scarcity.

Related posts:

  1. Water Tables and the Politics of Pricing
  2. The vanishing common sense
  3. Experts seek hike in global water price
  4. Can Coovam be our ‘Cheonggyecheon’?


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