I think it’s certainly a myth that an engineer’s profession is “inherently harder” than a coffee brewers.
In my opinion, people who would like to study engineering would do so not so because of what they are paid (the situation today), but because of their genuine interest.
On further reflection, it seems ludicrous to believe that that hardest professions are the most paid. The average CS job pays obscenely well, but is relatively trivial. Primary healthcare providers, essential services workers and so on are severely underpaid.
It’s not a myth for those that have to study 16 hours a day to understand all the intricacies of building structures with safety factors. The integrated corpus of engineering knowledge is just far greater than that of coffee brewing.
Of course, that doesn’t mean that the hardest professions are the most paid.
I specifically mentioned training because I knew this answer would come, and like clockwork it did.
Training takes time, and often unpaid. A coffee shop worker will immediately get rewarded while the engineer will not. If they will be equally compensated then the engineer is at a disadvantage.
> In my opinion, people who would like to study engineering would do so not so because of what they are paid (the situation today), but because of their genuine interest.
Marx said the same. If the people would be free they would produce out of their heart's desire. As it did not turn out that way the party needed to force the worker's desire into them. Literally to free them by force (freedom by force is another concept in itself :)).
Fair argument but I don’t see why training should inherently be unpaid.
In fact, I don’t see why the ability to have a good standard of living should be predicated on your profession in the first place.
The fact that engineering training is… unpaid as you say seems to put people who cannot afford to not make money for rent, food, etc. at a clear disadvantage. Those already rich (and able to afford unpaid training) would just get richer if they are paid more than an “untrained” worker.
> Fair argument but I don’t see why training should inherently be unpaid.
Because the lack of payment is the trainee's quid-pro-quo. It makes the trainee a counterpart in the training investment. In several countries in Europe to varying degrees and forms, the state pays for the training. It pays the professors, facilities and can even pay scholarships so that a disadvantaged background is not an impediment to such training(tackling the inequality issue you mention). I am not aware of any institution/state paying even a minimum wage up to master level.
Then there is the issue of difficulty, where it is clear that learning to serve a coffee mug requires less effort than learning advanced calculus. If you pay/reward the student engineer the same as the coffee waiter, you will likely still have fewer engineers[1]. Fewer engineers will produce fewer useful infrastructure or wealth to redistribute that the coffee waiter could benefit from. Therefore according to Rawls having them earning the same would be unfair.
> In fact, I don’t see why the ability to have a good standard of living should be predicated on your profession in the first place.
It is not. It is predicated on the the value the profession generates.
[1] The reward/base-line ratio feels like the reaction coefficient, where you use a higher reward to make an unlikely reaction become possible :)
PS: It took me a good while and rewrites to come up with a satisfactory answer. Thanks for the comment.
In my opinion, people who would like to study engineering would do so not so because of what they are paid (the situation today), but because of their genuine interest.
On further reflection, it seems ludicrous to believe that that hardest professions are the most paid. The average CS job pays obscenely well, but is relatively trivial. Primary healthcare providers, essential services workers and so on are severely underpaid.