Why are there "good jobs" and "bad jobs"?

Don't answer too quickly...

PART 1

There are two "common sense" explanations which spring readily to mind, and which should therefore be dealt with first:

1. Inequality of tasks
2. Inequality of people

The first one is rooted in the individual experience of work. For any individual, there are some tasks that are pleasant and some that are unpleasant. Likewise, some jobs contain a high proportion of tasks that are unpleasant to most individuals: the so-called "dirty jobs" that "somebody has to do," such as garbage collection, work in slaughterhouses, janitorial work, etc. Jobs in this category also include those that are physically dangerous (police officer, soldier), morally unpleasant (prostitute, executioner), or require unpleasant sacrifices (working on an oil rig), etc.

But in a world where all else is equal, these unpleasant qualities should be "factored in" to the negotiation over terms of work and compensation. To some extent, this holds true in the world: some people voluntarily spend 4-6 months away from their families on an oil rig in exchange for higher pay, work as a cop for a while in anticipation of an early retirement, etc. But in many more cases, we see just the opposite prevail: "dirty" jobs with longer hours and worse pay than other jobs, which are often unnecessarily dangerous. Meatpacking, farm work, food processing, and warehouse work are examples of entire industries made up of primarily of "bad" jobs. The economy, it seems, tends to concentrate and aggravate, rather than disperse and alleviate, the odiousness of "dirty" jobs.

So the nature of the tasks is clearly not a sufficient explanation for why some jobs are bad...

The second "common sense" explanation is that people are unequal. There is both a liberal and a  conservative take on this subject. To radically simplify what are complex and overlapping visions, liberals focus on education, while conservatives tend to focus on morals. In either version, whether you are better educated or just, well, better than other people, you will rise in the job market. Those who do not, or cannot, better themselves are left carrying the mops and buckets. This idea finds an equally comfortable theoretical footing - depending on one's inclination - in the idea of marginal productivity or that of social Darwinism.

A third possible explanation presents itself at this point:

3. Institutionalized racism, sexism, and other forms of discrimination

The conservative vision is sorely tested by the empirical reality of racial and gender inequalities in income. As a theory it is either nakedly racist - African-Americans and women get paid what they're worth, they're just worth less than white men - or it has to do a good deal of fancy footwork to explain these persistent inequalities. The usual formula is to shift from race to "culture" (see the link to David Brooks' review of Charles Murray's book, above) - eg, African-Americans have a culture which encourages them to under-perform. This is problematic, not least because it absolves its adherents of any responsibility to question racist outcomes. Unable to cleanly surmount this obstacle, most conservative social theorists simply balk and dig in their heels, defending the "common sense" of explanations 1 & 2 and leaving it at that.

For contemporary "progressive" liberals, on the other hand, this is where they really get going. They have a much readier answer as to why inequalities persist:

4. Inequality of access

This concept is, essentially, the pillar of liberal social theory. It ties together, in one neat package, discriminatory hiring and promotion practices as well as the "good start" an education gives. The potential depth of these two avenues makes them an almost limitless wellspring of ideas for tinkering with society. In this vision, equality is a relative good, not an absolute one, and it takes the form of "fairness." Yes, some are more talented, harder-working, and more ambitious than other people, and they will receive greater rewards from society, but as long as we persistently "level the playing field" we will end up with no more than an acceptable level of inequality. Of course, this line of thinking has it's own trap - given that it proposes a potentially limitless project of social engineering, the fact that we don't seem to be getting any closer to the goal poses no challenge to the underlying theory. Worse, because liberals tend to take for granted that they themselves are "fair," it's always somebody else's fault.

Although there is some instability which enters into this process (am I really fair? do I really know how to "fix" society?), but the "Achilles heel" of liberal philosophy - that it morally empowers the government to act while weakening the power of the individual to do so - is far more bothersome to conservatives than it is to liberals. While "white guilt" is a real fact, it only becomes politically charged when paired with the notion of "reverse discrimination."

As a social philosophy, therefore, whereas conservatism threatens to collapse into racism, liberalism compacts tidily into elitism - given that the powerful set the rules (and this is largely unchallenged by liberals) it is up to them to make sure the rules are fair. For the "underclass," there is little to do except to try to join the ranks of the educated or appeal to the pity of the educated.

This stand-off between conservatism and liberalism is expressed - contradictorily - through their shared belief in a single panacea:

5.  Equality of opportunity

There is a fundamental disagreement as to how equality of opportunity comes about - for conservatives, it exists as a natural (or divinely ordained) state, leading to a philosophy of "laissez faire," while for liberals, opportunity is a product of human society, and therefore must be actively made equitable. This "division by a common language" serves to unite the conservative and liberal positions, and, in doing so, sweep up various populist elements that threaten to become a politics of the underclass.

Stay tuned for PART 2...