I think most of your points here are well made, but
How do you figure this? Why aren’t we comparing to work hours? And why are we valuing non-work hours only in money earned?
Most people do not have the option to add more hours of work and thereby receive more money at the same rate. If you work a salaried 9-5, it’s misleading to calculate the value of your time as if your hours not already committed to work could be converted to money at the same rate, and even if you do work at a job that allows you to work overtime hours, you’ll generally only have the choice of whether to make that tradeoff for specific hours out of your week, not any hour as-desired.
If you’re typically employed, your work hours are already committed, so for the most part you only need to evaluate the tradeoffs on your remaining hours.
Well, all of that is actually false for me, as I can work my hours whenever I feel like, but that’s moot; I feel like your comment addresses a point other than the one I made.
What I meant was — are we stipulating that voting necessarily takes place during hours when I can’t work? Why? That seems unwarranted.
Also, I repeat this part of my question, which none of the above reasoning touches at all:
And why are we valuing non-work hours only in money earned?
Let’s say I work a salaried 9-5, have no option to work more, and vote after I leave work.
There’s still some opportunity cost. Maybe I miss my favorite TV show or my WoW raid or whatever. Maybe I don’t get to spend as much time with my family. Maybe I get less sleep. Why should we ignore such costs?
I agree that it’s not wise to ignore the associated opportunity costs, but it’s a rather common fallacy (at least, one that’s popped up quite often here) that one’s time is fungible for money at the rate one is compensated for work.
On the other hand, for many individuals there are also likely to be associated gains, such as the fact that voting tends to be widely viewed as an effective signal of conscientiousness. Personally, whatever my feelings about the likelihood of my vote having a meaningful effect on the course of an election, I would prefer most of my acquaintances to think of me as the sort of person who votes.
I think most of your points here are well made, but
Most people do not have the option to add more hours of work and thereby receive more money at the same rate. If you work a salaried 9-5, it’s misleading to calculate the value of your time as if your hours not already committed to work could be converted to money at the same rate, and even if you do work at a job that allows you to work overtime hours, you’ll generally only have the choice of whether to make that tradeoff for specific hours out of your week, not any hour as-desired.
If you’re typically employed, your work hours are already committed, so for the most part you only need to evaluate the tradeoffs on your remaining hours.
Well, all of that is actually false for me, as I can work my hours whenever I feel like, but that’s moot; I feel like your comment addresses a point other than the one I made.
What I meant was — are we stipulating that voting necessarily takes place during hours when I can’t work? Why? That seems unwarranted.
Also, I repeat this part of my question, which none of the above reasoning touches at all:
Let’s say I work a salaried 9-5, have no option to work more, and vote after I leave work.
There’s still some opportunity cost. Maybe I miss my favorite TV show or my WoW raid or whatever. Maybe I don’t get to spend as much time with my family. Maybe I get less sleep. Why should we ignore such costs?
I agree that it’s not wise to ignore the associated opportunity costs, but it’s a rather common fallacy (at least, one that’s popped up quite often here) that one’s time is fungible for money at the rate one is compensated for work.
On the other hand, for many individuals there are also likely to be associated gains, such as the fact that voting tends to be widely viewed as an effective signal of conscientiousness. Personally, whatever my feelings about the likelihood of my vote having a meaningful effect on the course of an election, I would prefer most of my acquaintances to think of me as the sort of person who votes.
I, on the other hand, would really rather not be thought of as the sort of person who votes.
Who are your acquaintances that they view voting as an effective signal of conscientiousness? Like… normal people, or something? Because that’s weird.