Feeling guilty or being critical of your own income isn't something that comes from a relative comparison to those who make more than you do. After all, even the average person in finance doesn't make as much money as people working in certain roles or at certain firms. Rather, it is about how that wealth is acquired and how certain jobs, including programmers, occupy a position of class privilege.
> Now, I'm not saying I'm struggling to buy food or anything on my healthy engineering salary, I'm just saying that I don't feel guilty AT ALL about how much I make, nor do I feel that I am overpaid in anyway.
That is totally fine, nobody really is asking that you or any other worker feel guilty. I do think that most people want there to be awareness and perspective about what it means to have the role you have and how that fits into capitalism and the society you live in. That kind of perspective isn't about guilt tripping.
> I do tend to think my contribution to society is at least as much as my finance friends, so perhaps either I am underpaid or they are overpaid.
It is likely that they are overpaid. When you think about it, people that perform low wage labor are just as valuable to society as programmers or those in finance. Those that do not work or cannot work are also just as valuable to society. Of course, work and capitalism don't recognize that inherent value and that is why people like BART workers have to strike and unionize to try and claw out what they desire to live.
> Now, I'm not saying I'm struggling to buy food or anything on my healthy engineering salary, I'm just saying that I don't feel guilty AT ALL about how much I make, nor do I feel that I am overpaid in anyway.
That is totally fine, nobody really is asking that you or any other worker feel guilty. I do think that most people want there to be awareness and perspective about what it means to have the role you have and how that fits into capitalism and the society you live in. That kind of perspective isn't about guilt tripping.
> I do tend to think my contribution to society is at least as much as my finance friends, so perhaps either I am underpaid or they are overpaid.
It is likely that they are overpaid. When you think about it, people that perform low wage labor are just as valuable to society as programmers or those in finance. Those that do not work or cannot work are also just as valuable to society. Of course, work and capitalism don't recognize that inherent value and that is why people like BART workers have to strike and unionize to try and claw out what they desire to live.