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LQD What are they worth?

by Sven Triloqvist Mon Dec 14th, 2009 at 03:13:53 AM EST

Calculating the real value to society of different professions

This report takes a new approach to looking at the value of work. We go beyond how much different professions are paid to look at what they contribute to society. We use some of the principles and valuation techniques of Social Return on Investment analysis to quantify the social, environmental and economic value that these roles produce - or in some cases undermine.

Examples from BBC explanation of the NEF (New Economics Foundation) report

A total of six different jobs were analysed to assess their overall value. These are the study's main findings:

The elite banker
"Rather than being wealth creators bankers are being handsomely rewarded for bringing the global financial system to the brink of collapse
Paid between £500,000 and half a million and £80m a year, leading bankers destroy £7 of value for every pound they generate".

Childcare workers
"Both for families and society as a while looking after children could not be more important. As well as providing a valuable service for families, they release earnings potential by allowing parents to continue working. For every pound they are paid they generate up £9.50 worth of benefits to society".

Hospital cleaners
"Play a vital role in the workings of healthcare facilities. They not only clean hospitals and maintain hygiene standards but also contribute to wider health outcomes. For every pound paid, over £10 in social value is created".

Advertising executives
The industry "encourages high spending and indebtedness. It can create insatiable aspirations, fuelling feelings of dissatisfaction, inadequacy and stress. For a salary of between £50,000 and £12m top advertising executives destroy £11 of value for every pound in value they generate".

Tax accountants
"Every pound that a tax accountant saves a client is a pound which otherwise would have gone to HM Revenue. For a salary of between £75,000 and £200,000, tax accountants destroy £47 in value, for every pound they generate".

Waste recycling workers
"Do a range of different jobs that relate to processing and preventing waste and promoting recycling. Carbon emissions are significantly reduced. There is also a value in reusing goods. For every pound of value spent on wages, £12 of value is generated for society."

The research also makes a variety of policy recommendations to align pay more closely with the value of work. These include establishing a high pay commission, building social and environmental value into prices, and introduce more progressive taxation.

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LQD What are they worth? | 28 comments (28 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)
Re: LQD What are they worth? (4.00 / 8)
note: Magnifico pointed out this story first, but I thought it worthy of a diary because it is a useful meme that is easily 'understood' - even if the calculations behind it may be more suspect.

You can't be me, I'm taken
by Sven Triloqvist on Mon Dec 14th, 2009 at 03:18:10 AM EST
Re: LQD What are they worth? (4.00 / 4)
Also worth pointing out that this 'think tank' is largely self-made, but they knew how to get the BBC to put out the narrative to make it look serious and official.

So they know how to play the media game.

by ThatBritGuy (thatbritguy (at) googlemail.com) on Mon Dec 14th, 2009 at 09:25:21 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Bruce Sparrow (4.00 / 2)
My guess that this guy (one of the nef 50 members) is the link:

Bruce has worked extensively across the third sector in various communications roles, involving media and public relations, communications planning, and campaign management. He has successfully raised organisational profiles in print, broadcast and online media. An experienced communicator, Bruce has given numerous TV and radio broadcasts and has written a series of guidance notes for charities on good media relations. A previous speaker at Media Trust events, he currently volunteers his spare time to charities and social enterprises through the Media Trust's Matching Service. Formerly a volunteer press officer to Transport 2000 and Friends of the Earth, Bruce has undertaken much media and PR work around health, well-being and environmental issues including sustainability, recycling, climate change, obesity and social exclusion.

'Third Sector' is nuspeak for charity and non-profit organizations.

You can't be me, I'm taken

by Sven Triloqvist on Mon Dec 14th, 2009 at 10:09:56 AM EST
[ Parent ]
"The know how to play the media game" (4.00 / 5)
This sort of sounds like advice for an ET think tank.

The Stop Blair campaign was successful and had some media coverage, but knowing how to work the media better would have made the petition more widely known.

Over at Daily Kos, kos' company is funding polls to both find out how the electorate sits, but also to drive, in part, a narrative. Polling, of course, takes money to do, but perhaps ET could do something again to drive a narrative again.

Maybe a series of white papers on the future direction of the EU post-Lisbon? Perhaps focusing on a energy, defense, and economy. Just a thought.

by Magnifico on Mon Dec 14th, 2009 at 02:18:00 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Polls (4.00 / 2)
A poll in Sweden costs 500-1200 euros per question depending on how good a brand you want.

Assuming it is the same elsewhere it should be considered expensive but not unusable. (As long as we do not want one per country or something like that.)

Sweden's finest (and perhaps only) collaborative, leftist e-newspaper Synapze.se

by A swedish kind of death on Tue Dec 15th, 2009 at 10:36:48 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: Polls (4.00 / 3)
Maybe we could set ourselves up as a polling outfit. We know how to do charts...

En un viejo país ineficiente, algo así como España entre dos guerras civiles, poseer una casa y poca hacienda y memoria ninguna. -- Gil de Biedma
by Carrie (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Tue Dec 15th, 2009 at 10:40:42 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: Polls (none / 1)
Generating representative samples and formulating appropriately framed and phrased questions would be two key tasks.

"It is not necessary to have hope in order to persevere."
by ARGeezer (ARGeezer a in a circle eurotrib daught com) on Tue Dec 15th, 2009 at 11:29:47 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: LQD What are they worth? (4.00 / 3)
The history of nef | the new economics foundation
The new economics foundation was launched in June 1986, along with the publication of Paul Ekins' book The Living Economy, which was a compilation of the presentations from the two international conferences known as TOES (The Other Economic Summit).

This began with the idea that a group of new economists, environmentalists, development campaigners and futurists TOES should challenge the right of the G7 leaders to speak for the economic future of the planet, and grew out of a series of meetings in Jonathon Porrit's flat in 1984.  The first TOES was held when the G7 came to London in July that year.

nef was designed as a permanent secretariat for TOES, but has developed into one of the largest and most prominent think-tanks in the UK, and one of the leading organisations in the world developing an economics which puts people and planet first.

It's all the same neither new nor small.

by afew (afew(a in a circle)eurotrib_dot_com) on Tue Dec 15th, 2009 at 04:50:52 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: LQD What are they worth? (4.00 / 6)
But it is home grown.

And pretending that you're big and significant, even if you aren't necessarily, is one of the prerequisites for becoming big and significant.

by ThatBritGuy (thatbritguy (at) googlemail.com) on Tue Dec 15th, 2009 at 06:03:51 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: LQD What are they worth? (4.00 / 2)
When in fact you're a recognized outfit with a line-up of fifty people, quite a number of whom seem to be fulltime, including an experienced press officer, it must be easier to "pretend".

What's my point? That pretending to be big and significant, though doubtless necessary, is far from sufficient. And in the case of nef, it's not even what matters most. nef is in fact a moderately big, significant, and recognized think tank, and one would expect it (after twenty-odd years) to have pretty solid networks in the British media.

by afew (afew(a in a circle)eurotrib_dot_com) on Tue Dec 15th, 2009 at 12:17:15 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: LQD What are they worth? (4.00 / 3)
Okay - so let's not do what nef did.

Where are we going to be twenty years from now?

by ThatBritGuy (thatbritguy (at) googlemail.com) on Tue Dec 15th, 2009 at 12:49:28 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: LQD What are they worth? (none / 0)
afew:
What's my point? That pretending to be big and significant, though doubtless necessary, is far from sufficient.

So I said don't do what nef did? As for twenty years time, you don't know, I don't know, no one does.

I'm simply trying to put a bit of realism and balance into this subthread. But since that apparently ain't cool, I'll drop out.

by afew (afew(a in a circle)eurotrib_dot_com) on Tue Dec 15th, 2009 at 02:12:23 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Media weight (none / 1)
Media weight (overnight celebrity apart) comes from track record. Networks can gain media weight faster than hierarchical organizations because each member of a new network brings in their own track record of connections and achievements. That can create a new 'personality' for a branded network much faster than a hierarchical organization can change its perceived 'personality'.

Top-down organizations tend to be represented by their chief officers (who can you name but Branson out of his entire empire?). With networked organizations there tend to be many (distributed) representatives. This means that it fairly easy to stress different aspects of the personality of the group (Think John, Paul, George and Ringo).

From a media perspective, there are more stories to follow. More stories mean more weight. (after a critical point).

What we (ET) haven't learned yet to do is to better exploit our own networks to get that media weight.

I agree with your main thrust. Though it may not be clear from these meanderings ;-)

You can't be me, I'm taken

by Sven Triloqvist on Tue Dec 15th, 2009 at 05:27:38 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: LQD What are they worth? (none / 0)
fantastic diary, it really cuts through the bull, (to use a vegetarian metaphor).

add in the 'valuation' of bad education, bad food, little prophylaxis and inept, mediocre health care and a huge over-reliance on a 'pills for everything' mentality.

imagine a society free of that ball and chain, and the world could be very much better.

'The history of public debt is full of irony. It rarely follows our ideas of order and justice.' Thomas Piketty

by melo (melometa4(at)gmail.com) on Wed Dec 16th, 2009 at 10:39:42 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: LQD What are they worth? (4.00 / 7)
Income reflects social status and not marginal productivity, who woulda thunk?

En un viejo país ineficiente, algo así como España entre dos guerras civiles, poseer una casa y poca hacienda y memoria ninguna. -- Gil de Biedma
by Carrie (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Mon Dec 14th, 2009 at 05:42:21 AM EST
Re: LQD What are they worth? (4.00 / 4)
And conversely, social status depends entirely on appropriating productivity.
by ThatBritGuy (thatbritguy (at) googlemail.com) on Mon Dec 14th, 2009 at 09:26:15 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: LQD What are they worth? (none / 1)
No, only on some scales.
by Colman (colman at eurotrib.com) on Mon Dec 14th, 2009 at 09:44:57 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: LQD What are they worth? (none / 1)
How often does the Econo quote care workers?

How many US Senators or UK MPs trained as nurses?

by ThatBritGuy (thatbritguy (at) googlemail.com) on Mon Dec 14th, 2009 at 12:34:28 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: LQD What are they worth? (none / 1)
Are you positing a unique status hierarchy in our societies?

En un viejo país ineficiente, algo así como España entre dos guerras civiles, poseer una casa y poca hacienda y memoria ninguna. -- Gil de Biedma
by Carrie (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Mon Dec 14th, 2009 at 04:24:13 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: LQD What are they worth? (4.00 / 5)
It's probably a cultural universal: your social status depends not on how much you can create, but how much you can destroy.

The fact is that what we're experiencing right now is a top-down disaster. -Paul Krugman
by dvx (dvx.clt ät gmail dotcom) on Mon Dec 14th, 2009 at 04:31:16 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: LQD What are they worth? (none / 0)
Are we talking about potlach now?

En un viejo país ineficiente, algo así como España entre dos guerras civiles, poseer una casa y poca hacienda y memoria ninguna. -- Gil de Biedma
by Carrie (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Mon Dec 14th, 2009 at 04:33:46 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: LQD What are they worth? (4.00 / 5)
Potlatch - "giving away" was, interestingly banned by both the Canadian and US governments, because the reciprocity and redistribution of wealth was thought more dangerous than cholera.

You can't be me, I'm taken
by Sven Triloqvist on Mon Dec 14th, 2009 at 04:40:59 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: LQD What are they worth? (4.00 / 2)
I'm referring to
The influx of manufactured trade goods such as blankets and sheet copper into the Pacific Northwest caused inflation in the potlatch in the late eighteenth and earlier nineteenth centuries. Some groups, such as the Kwakwaka'wakw, used the potlatch as an arena in which highly competitive contests of status took place. In some cases, goods were actually destroyed after being received, or instead of being given away.


En un viejo país ineficiente, algo así como España entre dos guerras civiles, poseer una casa y poca hacienda y memoria ninguna. -- Gil de Biedma
by Carrie (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Mon Dec 14th, 2009 at 04:46:20 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: LQD What are they worth? (4.00 / 4)
An early example of Creative Destruction, I'm sure.

Hazy memories of Anthro 200 wandering through my mind informs me the increase in goods destruction was linked to the ability to destroy valuable goods without removing the necessary amount of high value goods from the society and to maintain the status hierarchy.  In other words, any society can only have X amount of high value goods; once X is passed high status individuals seek to reduce the circulating surplus back to X to keep their status.

 

She believed in nothing; only her skepticism kept her from being an atheist. -- Jean-Paul Sartre

by ATinNM on Mon Dec 14th, 2009 at 05:58:54 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: LQD What are they worth? (4.00 / 3)
No, although that is an interesting variation on theme.

I merely note that throughout human history, status and authority seem consistently to be accorded to those who excel at non-productive or even destructive activities. The exercise of violence is probably the oldest and most obvious example of this, but many more niches were created as societies became more complex.

Status and authority as a function of parasitism... how's that for a paradigm?

The fact is that what we're experiencing right now is a top-down disaster. -Paul Krugman

by dvx (dvx.clt ät gmail dotcom) on Tue Dec 15th, 2009 at 02:47:50 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: LQD What are they worth? (4.00 / 6)
Nice economy you have there... it would be a shame if something were to happen to it...

En un viejo país ineficiente, algo así como España entre dos guerras civiles, poseer una casa y poca hacienda y memoria ninguna. -- Gil de Biedma
by Carrie (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Mon Dec 14th, 2009 at 04:34:24 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: LQD What are they worth? (4.00 / 5)
It's probably a cultural universal: your social status depends not on how much you can create, but how much you can destroy.

"He who can destroy something forever, controls it."

- Paul Muad'Dib Atreides

Friends come and go. Enemies accumulate.

by JakeS (JangoSierra 'at' gmail 'dot' com) on Tue Dec 15th, 2009 at 01:17:14 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: LQD What are they worth? (4.00 / 3)
Thorsten Veblen did refer to the business importance of the ability to inflict damage. He characterized the ability of a business to restrict the output to maintain a price as "damage." Likewise, the ability to damage your competitor is crucial. Think Bill Gates.

The logic of industrial production is to maximize quantity. This is why industry is controlled by business, which specializes in strategic damage. Nitzan and Bichler provide an extensive discussion of damage, or "sabotage" as they call it, in Capital as Power pp227-236.

"It is not necessary to have hope in order to persevere."

by ARGeezer (ARGeezer a in a circle eurotrib daught com) on Tue Dec 15th, 2009 at 11:48:25 AM EST
[ Parent ]
LQD What are they worth? | 28 comments (28 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)


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