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A valiant and praxeological critique of sociological Marxism!
At the risk of opening a huge can of political economy, and bearing in mind that I agree with Mises a lot more than the average person, there is still legitimate criticism to be had of how will and whim can make work that is not necessary (in the economic calculation sense) look immensely valuable.
Indeed, economic analysis is sometimes blind to what is a far more valuable if difficult to measure commodity: power.
Why are NTY journalists who are literally on less than subsistence pay higher on the totem pole than your average chemical industry executive? Power. They can ruin that executive and make him kill himself if they round up enough of their colleagues. You can't buy that. Billionaires have tried and failed.
Now this isn't to say that wage isn't a primary factor in one's status or immensely correlated with power and prestige (we do live in a capitalist society to some degree), but it isn't the only factor, and other factors can supersede it given circumstance.
Economics is like nature, you can override it for a long time if you have the will to do so, albeit never forever.
In what universe are NYT journalists higher on the totem pole than a chemical industry executive? And even if they were, they don't have some magically independent power to conjure life-screwing facts out of thin air.
Kavanaugh was an example of life-ruining facts literally being conjured out of thin air. They didn't succeed, but that was due to notable external factors.
Could you elaborate with actual concrete examples how mainstream media did it? My memory is hazy, but if I recall correctly, even some of the more liberal magazines like NYT specifically mentioned that they couldn't corroborate certain allegations against Kavanaugh with other people they questioned.
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Maybe this time one is successfully disciplining their journalists.
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This is like saying that cop is more powerful than CEO, because cop can arrest the CEO not the other way around.
NYT can indeed "ruin" even otherwise rich and powerful people, but the decision to "ruin" someone is not made in any democratic way (by "rounding up" friends) and is made far above any "subsistence pay" regular journalist.
A charismatic colonel is more powerful than a CEO. It's all contextual, of course. My point is that status is not reducible to monetary value. That doesn't mean you can't make an economic analysis of it, just that it's a lot harder than looking at the numbers you do have.
Yes, it is all contextual. "Charismatic" colonels are few, most officers are cogs in the machine (just like most CEO's). Analogically, you can say that popular and well connected investigative reporter is rather powerful, but how many of these are in NYT of today?
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