Numerous young Washingtonians bemoan the improvisational and protracted career track of the area’s public interest profession. They say the high competition for comparatively low-paying jobs saps their sense of adulthood, forcing them to spend their 20s or early 30s moving from college to work to graduate school and back to work that might or might not be temporary.
A couple points. First, the WaPo reporter is obviously sympathetic (not surprising–after all, journalists go into journalism because they too want to “make a difference”). He (or at least the copy editor who wrote the hed) calls them “altruists.” But are they? As Mark Twain once wrote in an extensive essay, no one ever does anything they don’t want to do. These folks engage in this because it makes them feel good. They’re obviously not considering their psychic income when they complain about their compensation.
But the real problem is that many of these policy types, particularly at the NGOs, want to engage in the type of do goodery that the supposed beneficiaries aren’t necessarily asking for, and don’t value that much (or perhaps value negatively). And in the cases in which they do, they don’t necessarily have the money to pay for it.
I’ve devoted a lot of my life to opening up space–a concept that much of the world has been able to do well without, to date (or at least it thinks it can), but I’ve never imagined that I’d make as much money doing it as I would doing things that people really do seem to value, regardless of how important I might think the goal. In fact, one of my biggest mistakes in life was not recognizing early that the most effective way to achieve my goals would have been to get wealthy first, then to apply that wealth toward them, as Elon Musk, John Carmack, Jeff Bezos and others have done.
But their fundamental premise is flawed. Who is it that really changes the world, and for the better?
I would argue that it is the people like Bill Gates, or Henry Ford, or Thomas Edison, or the Wright brothers, who have a much larger and more beneficial effect on the world than people who “want to make a difference.”
Who is more of a humanitarian, a Norman Borlaug, who through his technological efforts saved untold millions from hunger, and even starvation, and was reasonably compensated for it, or an Albert Schweitzer or Mother Theresa, who labored to help a relatively few poor and ill, while living in relative poverty? Obviously the latter derived personal satisfaction from their hands-on retail efforts, but I don’t think that they ever whined about their lifestyle.
These people do in fact need to grow up, and understand that there are other ways to help people than forming non-profits and NGOs, or working for a government bureaucracy. People are helped most by technological advances that make essential items–food, transportation, communication, shelter–more affordable and accessible to them, not by those who provide them with handouts and sympathy, and keep them in a state of perpetual dependency.
In many ways, Sam Walton was one of the great humanitarians of our time, in bringing our nation’s poor closer to a comfortable, middle-class lifestyle, and he seemed to do pretty well by doing good. But don’t expect very many of these idealistic overgrown adolescents to want to emulate him. Actually increasing wealth, for themselves and others, would go against everything they believe.
[Update a few minutes later]
I see that Ann Althouse’s commenters have a lot of thoughts similar to mine.
[Monday morning update]
Well, this post has certainly drawn a lot of commentary (particularly after the Instapundit link).
One clarification. A couple commenters (missing the point by a mile), write:
Lots of animus here for non-science majors… and people who work in charitable fields.
and another (sarcastically):
Teachers suck! Journalists suck! They’re idiots and we hate them! The only worthwhile people are people with degrees in the sciences. Oh, well, most scientists are a bunch of whiny lefties too. So the only really worthwhile people on this planet are the engineers! Yea engineers!
This isn’t about C. P. Snow’s cultural clash, or science being better than liberal arts, or the suckitude of teachers or journalists. It’s about unrealistic expectations, not to mention self righteousness.
I mentioned Sam Walton as someone to be emulated. Last time I checked the man was neither a scientist or an engineer. But he was someone who created vast wealth, not only for himself and his family, but for many of the poorest citizens (and non-citizens) of our nation, because enabling someone to purchase better-quality products for lower prices does in fact increase their wealth.
And journalists and teachers have important jobs to do, and the best are paid far too little, but the mediocre in those professions (who are legion) are probably overpaid. This is one of the reasons that the newspaper industry is dying–if we had a government-run news agency with a powerful national compulsory reporters’ union, they could probably do better at seeking rent, as the NEA has. But then, mediocre reporters would be even more overpaid than now.
The point is that if one wants to seek a degree in history, or French literature, there’s nothing wrong with that, but that they should understand what their job and salary prospects are with those degrees. They should understand that if you’re going to take on a huge student loan, it might be better not to simply follow one’s muse, but to get an education that will enable one to pay off the loan, rather than to simply curse the philistines who unaccountably don’t recognize the value to society of your interests.
And if one wants to be a social worker, or save the whales, they should understand the relative value that society places on those professions. They should also understand that if their goal really is to “make a difference,” or help people, that neither whale saving or social work is necessarily the best profession for that, and unlikely to be a well-compensated one (or at least, as Lennie told Homer when the latter asks if being head of the union pays well, “Only if you’re corrupt.” Homer: “Woo hoo!”).
And if despite that, they really get an endorphin rush from administering welfare checks, or managing Peace Corps workers, they should recognize that as part of their compensation, and that many of their idealistic cohorts do as well, and that the supply of their talent, such as it is, will always exceed demand in the marketplace.