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Scrooge is out Early This Year
Robin Hanson has his Scrooge hat on:
A student told me the other day he wanted to be a doctor, so he could help people. I thought, "What, as opposed to the rest of us who hurt people?" Contrary to the smug self-righteousness assumptions of those in "helping" professions, like child care, teaching, counseling, or emergency services, it is far from obvious that these professions are any more helpful than the rest...
Read the whole thing if you are not already convinced. I agree with Robin. Let me add that I am an equal opportunity Scrooge, I also really dislike those TIAA-CREF ads which make professors out to be saints.
Posted by Alex Tabarrok on December 12, 2006 at 04:55 PM in Economics | Permalink
Comments
Alex:
You know perfectly well that the only reason TIAA-CREF treats professors as angels is to get their money for its investments and insurance. Why should you be against that?
With best regards for the holidays,
Dan
Posted by: Dan Cole at Dec 12, 2006 5:08:25 PM
Thanks for calling out those annoying TIAA-CREF "greater good" commercials...It's about time someone said something!
Posted by: Christopher Monnier at Dec 12, 2006 5:59:26 PM
I totally agree. (Of course, it's ok for an undergrad to mouth empty bromides like that.)
Posted by: jp at Dec 12, 2006 6:25:32 PM
In defense of the stethoscopes:
Isn't it well known in the medical profession that answering, "I want to help people," is the same thing as saying, "I'm full of shit"? I recall an ER episode once mocking this very thing. One of the main characters has to sit through a bunch of medical school interviews, and every single one of the interviewees cites some version of the "helping people" answer. Meanwhile, all the interviewing doctors look on completely bored. The one candidate who does not use this stock response stands out (in a positive way).
In other words, I reckon that most doctors are aware that the "helping people" statement is sanctimonious claptrap.
(Note: I'm not a doctor, but I watch other non-doctors playing them on TV.)
Posted by: Trieu Truong at Dec 12, 2006 6:41:42 PM
There is a cultural component to the helping professions. In the US, nurses and nannies are often imported from poor catholic countries to some extent because they grew up in an anti-materialistic culture that values helping people.
Doctors are probably a somewhat different issue because they make so much money. Here is a good article on doctors that is pretty clear eyed about what the fact that some doctors are better than others should mean:
http://www.newyorker.com/printables/fact/041206fa_fact
Posted by: joeo at Dec 12, 2006 7:32:05 PM
Being a doctor one can enjoy a nice dowry in the marriage market in India and that is why many parents forcefully direct their children to have medical education.
Posted by: Samy at Dec 12, 2006 7:43:06 PM
“By participating in a society we all help each other.”
Prostitutes help people by reducing their stress level, but they also spread STDs.
Drug dealers help people deal with pain yet they reduce the productivity of addicts.
Lawyers fight for justice and sometimes let people get away with murder.
Teachers enlighten students and sometimes they indoctrinate and make people more narrow-minded and arrogant.
Doctors help people to heal and they often overcharge (and on occasion unintentionally goof up)….In all the above professions, people are also overcharged. What else do doctors do that makes them as much a liability as the above mentioned?
Posted by: Chairman Mao at Dec 12, 2006 7:54:33 PM
While we’re on the topic of health care, why on earth don’t hospitals post fees for services on a menu like we see at a Burger King…..and it’s not because the services are ‘too complicated’ or ‘too varied’ they have price lists themselves and the lists are finite. Can anyone tell me (without research) the price of an average MRI or chest X-ray?
Why can’t I go online and check prices for health services as I do with airline fares?
Posted by: Chairman Mao at Dec 12, 2006 8:09:45 PM
Chairman Mao,
I agree, doctors are better than drug dealers and prostitutes.
Posted by: Hei Lun Chan at Dec 12, 2006 8:09:55 PM
Alex, you shouldn't point this out. As it stands, I think we're getting the services of doctors, cops, soldiers, fireman, etc..., at lower prices than we would if those jobs didn't come with special status in our society.
Posted by: Pedro Bento at Dec 12, 2006 8:30:32 PM
Great, and easily missed, point.
Posted by: Chris Meisenzahl at Dec 12, 2006 9:03:37 PM
I think there is some merit to doctors thinking that they help people more than other professions. Doctors receive as salary much higher than average. And they do get this despite their services being less subject to income effects than other professions. The fact that they receive this high wage is evidence that others value what they do relatively highly and the fact that others value what they do highly is evidence that what they do is more useful than what others do.
Posted by: Michael Foody at Dec 12, 2006 9:15:23 PM
People often act as though health care providers help them more than other professionals. Doctors and
nurses working in intensive care wards often receive heart felt thanks from patients and families and
often receive large numbers of flowers and other gifts. Even hightly skilled, competitively priced
carpenters rarely receive such thanks. With people acting this way perhaps it's not too surprising that
doctors consider themselves to be more helpful than the average worker.
It is interesting to note that sex workers also often also receive heartfelt thanks and gifts. However
they may also receive more abuse than health care professionals.
Posted by: Ronald Brak at Dec 12, 2006 9:35:26 PM
Hanson’s argument rings true. I see the statement “I want to help people” as a tactful way of saying “I place a high value on prestige.” This is similar to the politician who says “I want to make better laws” and really means “I want to tell others what to do.” But we must use the self-deceiving terminology; prestige depends on it. As Pedro points out, prestige likely effects the price of services.
Posted by: blink at Dec 12, 2006 9:37:40 PM
I'm an engineer because I like solving problems. My wife's a nurse because she like working with ("helping") people. I'd be bored out of my mind "helping people" if it meant doing the same thing every day. For her, each person is different so it's not the same thing each day...though it would be for me.
I think your negative comments say more about you than about "helping professions"...
Posted by: Greg Lauer at Dec 12, 2006 10:15:02 PM
There are different saving ways to intepret the phrase "I want to help people." A couple:
1) "I want to help individual people, one at a time, face to face." Not every profession, helpful as most of them are, help in that particular way, and doctoring does stand out from many of them that way.
2) "I want to help people back on their feet who are suffering misfortune." Not every profession is remedial, and doctoring stands out from most of them that way.
Posted by: Constant at Dec 12, 2006 11:34:01 PM
I agree that in the vast majority of cases, "I want to help people" means "I want to feel superior to others," but sometimes it's true. Consider someone who wants to help people. If this person didn't have that drive, he might become an investment banker, but if HE thinks the social worth of i-banking is pretty low, he might decide to become a doctor instead. The only scenario I can think of where this is a legitimate argument is when the supply of qualified people for the philanthropic job is low or seen to be low enough that the social benefit of switching is high (so doctors working in the first world can't say this), like math teachers in inner city schools (Teach for America) or the military (supply question debatable, I'm thinking of a Tillman type example).
Posted by: Omkar at Dec 13, 2006 2:31:13 AM
I want to work for a consumer credit company so that I could hurt poor people :-P
Posted by: PK at Dec 13, 2006 5:36:29 AM
Michael Foody might want to have a look at the diamond water paradox of value before asserting that it should be clear the doctors are more valuable than professors because of their having a higher wage. Are diamonds, overall, more useful than water?
Posted by: indiana jim at Dec 13, 2006 5:48:15 AM
I'm currently in the process of getting my teaching license, most likely to work at a public school. I'm pretty sure that I am the only person in the school who feels bad about it. ;)
Posted by: josh at Dec 13, 2006 9:17:37 AM
the diamond water doesn't work because medicine is less of a luxury than education not more. Doctors and teachers are made from the same resource, people. My argument was incomplete because it was a comment on a blog. But that is now excuse to be just silly.
Posted by: Michael Foody at Dec 13, 2006 9:44:02 AM
As if the only other alternative to helping people is to hurt them.
There are quite a number of jobs (well-paying and prestigious even) that are net negatives on society.
Posted by: eriks at Dec 13, 2006 9:55:09 AM
eriks: "There are quite a number of jobs (well-paying and prestigious even) that are net negatives on society."
If a job is well paying (and assuming that it's not illegal and that people aren't forced to pay for it (such as the jobs of congressmen or heads of regulatory agencies)), how can it be a net negative?
Posted by: jp at Dec 13, 2006 10:38:56 AM
Eriks is right.
If I visit you (and you are my doctor), I expect that your intention is to benefit me. In part because of the information asymmetry, I depend on your benevolent motivation.
If I negotiate the sale of my house with you, I expect that you will be seeking to pay as little as possible. (Similarly, I will be seeking to make you pay as much as possible.) My expectation is that you will follow the law, but not that you will care about my well-being.
You don't see a moral difference here?
Posted by: Bill Gardner at Dec 13, 2006 10:41:22 AM
Bill,
No.
Posted by: josh at Dec 13, 2006 10:51:53 AM
