Enjoying your work = consumer good?

Economics Economics Questions
1

quick question: if somebody can make $200,000 a year working for a firm doing work that he finds boring, or $100,000 a year doing work that he finds challenging and interesting, and he chooses the latter, does that mean that the latter type of work is also in a way a consumer good? Could one for example say that to the extent that he doen’t choose more money (in this case $200,000-100,000=100,000) the type of work is a consumer good?

how does one technically interpret or conceptualize this situation?

2

Ceteris paribus the individual would have chosen that job which gives him the greatest income. The fact that he choses the $100,000 per annum job just shows that all things aren’t equal and that the disutility of labour in the former is greater than that in the latter.

3

okay thanks, so you would say that the concept of ‘consumer good’ simply does not apply here?

some more thoughts:

leisure always involves using time.

if you analyze it in terms of opportunity costs then you could say that you forego $100,000 in order to spend your time on leisure. (engaging in a hobby for example is leisure, no?)

mmmh, partial rephrase of the problem would then be: is leisure consumption? does one consume time? does one consume foregone alternatives? (the latter also seems like a reductio ad absurdum, so I reckon the problem is with my reasoning)

4

its not a consumer good, because if it was , the purchase of it would have to involve the outlay of some money/ the payment of some cost.

the so called opportunity cost , where we imagine, the 100,00 more he could earn somewhere else, isnt relevant. he didnt earn it, so he cant spend it.

I would only ask you if there is a reason that you might hope to put the consumer good label on the non-economic good of the guys feelings?

consumption has a very precise meaning, it using up something that you had prior. hence you cant consum parts of things you never had, but only imagined you could have. e.g. your opportunity type examples

5

thanks. on another forum somebody just replied with this quote:

“To the extent that they abstain from higher money income to pursue nonmonetary ends (e.g., looking at one’s untilled land or enjoying leisure), the producers’ own valuations will be determining. From the general praxeological point of view, these producers are to that extent acting as consumers.” – MES, p. 569, n. 12.

and that seems to make sense in the sense that the analysis is on the basis of opportunity costs

6

Work would be a consumer good if someone would pay (and not just with opportunity) to do it.

In that sense, it can’t really be considered work, but that is I believe the condition we’d need for it to be a consumer good.

But all economic theory takes into account the non-pecuniary costs and benefits of work.

7

you pay in terms of opportunities foregone