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Certainly not, if you believe that payment should be related to a person's value to society.
The skilled nurse probably saves more lives than either the doctor or the surgeon who, in
most countries, are paid infinitely more. In the UK the State Registered Nurse is paid more
than the State Enrolled Nurse, because he or she has higher qualifications. Yet, even the
highest qualified nurse today cannot afford to service a mortgage on a house. Their union
deplores industrial action by the profession, but nevertheless it has meant strikes in the UK to
force a reluctant government into financing better incomes in the National Health Service,
and in the view of many these incomes remain inadequate.
The reason is that in a capitalist society incomes depend on the market economy i.e. supply
and demand. If you supply a need and are in a minority you can command a high income. In
a socialist state, the government evaluates the contributions of all workers and fixes wages
accordingly. This seems a fair system. Yet, the reality of the situation is that any government's
ability to pay depends on the size of the gross national product. If this is inadequate,
everybody's pay will be low, with the exception of the favored few, and standards of living
will also be low. It is therefore an irony that many governments are abandoning socialism in
favor of the freedom of the market economy to create wealth. In doing so, they abandon
what is perhaps a more moral job evaluation. Because on the whole there are enough
nurses, they needn't be paid very high salaries.
Among young people the demand for pop music is insatiable. The supply is relatively small.
The reasons for the demand are complex. Most young people go through a phase from, say,
age thirteen to seventeen during which they long for certain things; freedom from parental
control and from the accepted behavioral norms of society; freedom from dress conventions;
freedom to protest against war, poverty, injustice, the police, sexual conventions, the
establishment in general. With the utmost cynicism, the promoters of pop
foster all these
instincts. The other factor is that nowadays teenagers can earn or be given far more money
than the same age-group ever had in earlier days. Thus there is a ready market for records,
discs, tapes, T-shirts with the appropriate logos, concerts, TV and radio broadcasts.
Unscrupulous promoters are often connected with the drug racket. Cynical promoters
cash in
on the charitable instincts of the young by organizing band-aid concerts. So whoever loses,
the promoter wins. So do a very small proportion of the bands and singers. The vast majority
eke out a poor living by playing and singing in public houses (bars) and local halls.
So the question really refers to the small minority who are successful. For every Madonna,
there are a thousand would-bes. The women sometimes descend to pornographic videos
and the men become builders' laborers. Few pop performers stand the test of time. Even
fewer, who have bought large houses, powerful cars and yachts can save their money or
preserve the life-style which belonged to their days of glory.
We live in a real world, which is fast becoming a shrine of materialism. It is no more moral for
a pop singer to earn a fortune that it is for a property dealer or a business tycoon. Yet, that is
life in the western and westernized world. What is immoral is that a nurse has to fight for a
living wage. Nursing is after all a vocation, like that of the doctor, the priest or the social
worker. The people served are more important than the money. Yet, many governments take
advantage of the nursing vocation. In some respects they are as cynical as the pop promoters.
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