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"The research, carried out by think tank the New Economics Foundation, says hospital cleaners create
Makes sense. Those who keep a place improve the value of a place because when people enter that place, they are more likely to return because they feel it's clean and sanitary. It's more psychological comforting to walking into and spend time in a clean and sanitary environment. It makes people feel more safe and protected. Cleaning also maintains a more visually appealing environment - improves aesthetics of a place. So, yeah, it makes sense that those are responsible for physical maintenance of a facility would produce work that is quite valuable. Problem is, we rarely think of it in that way. You can be rich but if you live in filth, you're not really going to feel that rich. The cleanliness of a space or surrounding environment improves the value of a place. That's a longstanding truth whether it's a home, city, community, etc. Places which are cleaner, are always going to be worth more than those which aren't kept well.
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I think those are great points to consider and the article was very perceptive: Hospital cleaners prevent the spread of diseases and deaths from bacteria like MRSA, which would be costly to treat and would incur more expenses for society as a whole, whereas rightly some accountants can find their clients loopholes in the law and different ways of tax evasion which are very costly to society as a whole. I think we're not used to think in this way. Usually those who create largest profit for companies (shareholders) or income for themselves are valued the most, whereas from the point of view of society's overall wellbeing the highest actual value is from those jobs we usually look down upon. I thought this was an exiting way of looking at it. 
Surely worth some thought as to what way should we concider value in society: What is our best interest as a whole?
Surely worth some thought as to what way should we concider value in society: What is our best interest as a whole? 
I've been saying for awhile that cleaning personnel are underpaid. The CEOs wont do their work if they have to work in filth and clean up after themselves. This makes janitors necessary and the CEOs success then depends on the janitor. It isnt skill alone that determines pay its also willingness to do the job, and nobody is willing to be a janitor so their wage should go up.
Do you have a link to the study (I couldn't find it on their website, maybe I just suck at searching)? Although I don't doubt bankers arguably create more bads than goods in the current system (FRBs, fiat money ladida you know the rant), I doubt their methodology for measuring "real" value is sound.
a few things...
1. People pay for what they value. If people are paying more for something, they value it more. If you think someone should "be paid more" then start your own business and then pay them more.
2. Although this isn't an argument against the OP, this foundation has advocated for the "21 hour work week". They're about economics for social change, not actual growth.
3. "Bankers destroy value". I'm guessing this was measured in the past couple of years during the collapse. Not to mention, why would people pay for a service that destroys wealth? Seeing as so many people are making money off of these people, I seriously doubt that it destroys value.
I also kinda want to know what they mean by "social value". No doubt, there are some assumptions in there that I would like to take a closer look at.
1. People pay for what they value. If people are paying more for something, they value it more. If you think someone should "be paid more" then start your own business and then pay them more.
2. Although this isn't an argument against the OP, this foundation has advocated for the "21 hour work week". They're about economics for social change, not actual growth.
3. "Bankers destroy value". I'm guessing this was measured in the past couple of years during the collapse. Not to mention, why would people pay for a service that destroys wealth? Seeing as so many people are making money off of these people, I seriously doubt that it destroys value.
I also kinda want to know what they mean by "social value". No doubt, there are some assumptions in there that I would like to take a closer look at.
I can defintly see how putting your money in a bank, the majority of which dont keep up with the rate of inflation, is essentially destroying your wealth. Yes give me that 3% return, you keep 3%, mean while the rate of inflation is 7% (last I checked which was several years ago). Waste.
If there was ever an article that needed a source link, this one is it. The article doesn't really do anything in terms of giving insights of the study other than apparently jobs that focus on improving health or encourage tax revenue to the government are beneficial to society and jobs that are detrimental to one's own health or are paid too much are destructive to society.
I would guess that if you are a proponent of a strong centralized government then you'd likely agree with this article.
I would guess that if you are a proponent of a strong centralized government then you'd likely agree with this article.
i work for a janitorial company and clean medical offices and exam/procedure rooms. i don't know about it being worth more to society, but i wish people didn't look at it as a menial job. i rather like my job - the hours are great, i work alone at my own speed and no one bothers me. perfect.
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All the studies the New Economics Foundation have published are free and after I spent some time going through them I found the study the article was based on (BBC is well reputed so I just posted the article). But here's the link: http://www.neweconomics.org/publications/bit-rich
This might explain what the study is talking about when they say value:
From surplus value to social value
Early theories of value neglected the extent to which the production and trade of goods and services may have a wider impact on society that is not reflected in the cost of producing them. These ‘externalities’ are often remote or hard to see but that does not mean that they are not real or that they do not affect real people – either now or in the future.
Because social and environmental costs are not properly accounted for, the market tends to oversupply products that may have a significantly negative environmental or social impact – such as cheap consumer goods and complex financial products. In the same way we underpay work that has a high social value, creating high vacancy rates in our most important public services such as nursing and social work. By making social value creation an important societal goal we could set the right incentives to maximise net social benefits, ensure a greater return to labour rather than capital, and a more equal distribution of economic resources between workers.
So they are obviously trying to come up with new solutions to existing problems by shifting the focus from generating money to generating overall wellbeing. Obviously it's British. Being a part of the EU has an obvious impact on national policy but traditionally they have been a sovereign country with a strong national government, like many European countries. The recent years with the EU and radical changes in national policy (at least where I'm from in northern Europe there have been many changes with the privatization of certain integral functions that were previously state run ) have seen new type of problems emerge. (EDIT: So in effect I guess you could say they are not promoting a strong centralized government, because then they would be pro EU instead of national government. This study targets the problems as they manifest in the UK and from that perspective, how their system works, though there are same problems everywhere in the western countries. Of course in the US centralized government would have a different connotation. I'm not familiar with how much is regulated by the different States and how much by the central Government over where most you guys are)
The 21 hour work week I'm not familiar with but there is a huge trend going on now among people to do only as little work as they can to survive so they can focus on family and interests, newly graduated doctors doing only 25 hours a week etc... It's starting to unnerve business people. Yesterday there was an interview of a top business consultant who appealed to people to work the same hours as before "for the sake of those on welfare" which was a bit much since his clients are some of the country's largest corporations who following his advice have downsized their staff and increased the remaining workers workload, putting people on welfare in the first place... I've personally quit two jobs after his consultancy firm "improved" them. I think there is already a major shift in attitudes. People are beginning to remember what they are actually working for and re-evaluing what their personal priorities are.
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Wold you be able to share the link to that? I would be interested to read it.
This whole study is fascinating because it attempts to count/value/quantify things that are very difficult to count/value/quantify. (Accountants hate that $#!%) But it is important! For instance, how much do you suppose a reputation is worth? There's no money for a reputation, and you definitely can't buy or sell one, but reputation strongly affects an entity's (person's, place's or thing's) experience and value in the world at large. Also: do clean toilets really make a business perform better? (Smell better yes. Perform better? Well, I don't know but I sure hope so.) How much do you think being extremely stressed costs you? (Probably a lot.) How much do you think your bad health habits cost you? (no, not you just people's in general -- and certainly a lot)
Personally, I think it is interesting and I appreciate you sharing it.
In all this talk nobody ever seems to consider how much non-paid work people (like me) do. That sort of thing is hard to account for, it but I know I spend probably as much time or more doing non-paid and volunteer work as paid work, which makes the concept of a 21- (or 25-) hour work week a bit laughable to me. (Also, I need a vacation.)
And would you truly, truly HONESTLY be willing to pay someone just as much to, for example, wash your dishes, as you would be willing to pay someone to operate on your brain or do something highly skilled and crucial to you, which you can in no way do for yourself? (Really -- I'd like to know? Would you? Because that is integral to something's value, however we define "value".)
There's also an old saying: "Something is only worth as much as someone is willing to pay for it." And I think that is oftentimes true, but not always. It's like this study is saying that things are not necessarily worth what people are willing to pay for them. So we're not really talking about money, even though we are, we're really talking about people, aren't we?
I'd hazard a guess that most cleaning personnel could do a better job of running the banking system than the bankers we have.
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it was a radio interview in a funky exotic language.. ;D
You're preaching to the choir... I did a lot of things locally in the music scene: Had a club, played with my band...etc..etc After work and studying I'd run to rehearsal and spent weekends on the road or DJing, putting up posters, handing flyers, making the flyers and posters, writing songs, answering e-mails, planning tours...for 7 years non stop. ...and washing dishes and doing the regular "woman" things. It was basically for nothing as everything went back into the band, clubs and parties so it was really just for the love of it. But that's how the subculture scenes operate really. Without people who keep things running out of love and passion there'd be no underground music scene. ;D Obviously I've been asked often why I'm not doing anything (as in go study and get a "real" job because I could). I thought I was doing something meaningful constantly...
I'd pay more to the person operating my brain. But I wouldn't pay much to someone employing cutting edge psychological tactics to make my kids want to drink some soda that's going to be harmful to their health. to those guys I'd be tempted to give a spanking even though I'm a firm believer in non-violence... ;D
People are worth the smallest amount they are willing to be paid, and products are worth whatever people will pay for them. that's just the simple fact of the matter. If the amount of money paid wasn't worth it to that person they wouldn't take the job.
Shoot. I really wanted to hear it. Oh, well. (Although, now I am wondering just how exotic exactly was the language? Klingon?)
I totally agree! The executives would probably just enjoy the spanking, however, so it would probably be more effective to simply ban their access to your kids' minds.
It didn't irk you to write the emboldened part? You probably meant "The services people provide"... Besides, using equivalence of values is wrongheaded in exchanges: if I give you A in exchange for B, this means I prefer having B rather than A and it is therefore more valuable to me than A.
Re: The notion of being underpaid
Pay doesn't reflect the value contributed as such, it's more about scarcity (let's analyze water in a similar way to how the NEF report analyzed hospital cleaning: if it weren't for water, everyone would die, yet only the teeniest tiniest fraction of economic output is spent on water. Conclusion: water is underpriced). If hospital cleaners were scarce, different hospitals would have to bid up the price to get the services needed and pays would rise, attracting more to the field until demand is satisfied.
Concomitantly, if employment is scarce for cleaners, they will "overbid" each other by offering more work for less pay, until the amount of workers in the field who prefer the job (including pay etc) over other things they could do in that time (opportunity costs) is enough to perform all cleaning services that are needed (it should be noted here that I'm aware that these equilibria are analytic abstractions that reality only tends toward).
If the pay level where this scenario occurs seems low, one should look toward the education system (where humans can invest in themselves to enable them to provide more scarce services and thereby increase the value of their work [opportunity costs]). Is the market hampered? Does financing discriminate toward more productive education programs or create mal-investments? Are monopolistic interventions increasing the cost of self-investment, creating barriers to entry in labor markets that require high education, and thereby pushing wages up in those markets?
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Almost... ;D
I know...It's just that Antarctica doesn't really have good schools and It's illegal to raise them in a barrel.
All joking aside. There's really no way I can do that without moving to the countryside where there's still more room for kids to be just kids without the pressures of getting this or that thing that's the latest trend, but truthfully there really are no jobs there, so we'd have to really research what would sustain us as a family.