Why Are Programmers Paid So Much?
I sort of think the notion of software development as this highly intellectual field is kind of flimsy.
It’s an odd conversation and I think it’s hard to, as you put it, find objective evidence, but I just think the organization of labor where we pay often pay so much more than other fairly skilled professionals is not necessarily an idea that will be around for the long haul. — @ThePracticalDev via Dev.to
I think the reason that the pay gap between programmers and other professionals is so large is because programming is a low-level skill — similar to reading, writing, or math — which has very poor distribution within society. There is a sort of mysticism surrounding programming which needs to be dispelled.
Not too long ago, there was very few people who could read, write, or perform basic math. The people who had low-level skills were given great rewards; one of the most privileged groups of them all was the Scribes of Ancient Rome. Scribes could become a member of the royal court and were exempt from both taxation and physical labor; this was the case despite that just a couple of hundred miles away Socrates demonstrated that even an uneducated slave child could teach himself math without much effort or help. How did society eventually dispel the mystification surrounding reading, writing, and math?
