Cognitive pollution - Economics

A rebuke to cognitive pollution in BS Jobs and BS Economics by Alex Tabarrok.

David Graeber attempted a long form article on the quality of jobs for the magazine Strike! His article is all dressed up in the form of a serious proposition with quoted facts and references to sources but quickly comes off the rails. It is not worth the time to refute so much asserted hogwash but Tabarrok highlights a particularly glaring example.

A trope of social critics is that certain classes of jobs are not valued to the degree "we" think they ought to be. That we ought to pay teachers and garbage men and nurses dramatically more because they are so critical. This line of thinking is a function of the economic theory of marginal utility and is known, as Tabarrok points out, as the Paradox of Value or the Diamond-Water Paradox (why do we value diamonds, which are functionally useless so much more highly than water which is necessary to life). We know pretty well why different goods and services cost what they do, or at least we understand the dynamics that affect that cost.

These theories and principles were broached, explored, elaborated, quantified, and empirically tested throughout the 18th and 19th centuries. This isn't new news.

So why, in the 21st century, is a journalist pedaling false information (that particular classes of jobs are undervalued)? Could be ideology (people fail to see that which contradicts their personal beliefs). It could be just general ignorance. While marginal utility is a central theorem in economics and would be covered in a high school class in economics, perhaps Graeber and his editors have not been exposed to that knowledge.

Whatever the sources of the error, the result is still cognitive pollution, diverting time and attention from solvable problems by attempting to focus on issues which are already understood and resolved.