Unfortunately, there are far too many people who confuse self worth with market worth/salary/net worth, etc. I have in the past worked many more hours in higher-stress jobs in order to make more money. I choose now to work fewer hours in a lower-stress job for somewhat less money. The market is free to assign more monetary value to jobs of the former type. I don't consider my worth as a person to be tied to how the market values my job.

>In America the market dictates your self worth.

As it does everywhere in certain factors.

If you aren't attractive to a life partner, you don't get a life partner. Why should a work partner or an employer be different?

> If you aren't attractive to a life partner, you don't get a life partner. Why should a work partner or an employer be different?

Because you don't necessarily die of starvation or become a burden to the state if you don't get a life partner, unlike what happens if you don't have any source of income?

Lack of touch will kill babies. The research wasn't extended any further because it is too harmful for ethics boards to allow. And loneliness is very harmful to one's own health which has been verified by research as well. Compare this to all the forms of welfare that do more than give the basic necessities to not die because they significantly improve qualify of life. We are social creatures, yet when we discuss needs we deserve to have met, people seem to forget that.

Sure, lots of things affect your quality of life, some slightly and some greatly.

However, the job market is qualitatively different, which is why it should be held to different standards. Loneliness is definitely harmful, but still many people don't want sexual/life partners. However, everyone needs to eat and have some sort of shelter and access to health services. If you lack money for this, you either die or become a burden to someone else, possibly the state.

Coming back to what I believe was the parent's point when they said "in America the market determines your self worth", your worth as a person isn't -- shouldn't be! -- how much money you make or even whether you have a job. That simply doesn't seem right to me.

>but still many people don't want sexual/life partners. However, everyone needs to eat and have some sort of shelter and access to health services.

First, only eating is really required, and it requires far less than a healthy diet. The rest of that you can find people who forgo. Also, there are some who choose to not eat and a subset of them do hold this choice until they die (which tends to be soon after and caused by not eating). Consider some monks who mummified themselves through strict control of their diet as one extreme example.

So what do we consider a need? If you'll live 40 years on gruel but 50 years on a balanced diet, is the balanced diet a need? What if the difference is 5 years and 15 years respectively? What if it is 3 months and 10 years and 3 months respectively?

>your worth as a person isn't -- shouldn't be! -- how much money you make or even whether you have a job

Then what should be? And what ever criteria you do choose to determine your worth to others, what of people who lack that criteria through no fault of their own?

In principle. Have you ever met anyone who got a "good" job through connections?

No. No. No. The "value" her is not about self worth. It's about how much someone will pay for your labor. That's a big difference.

In America, to, I don't know, probably half of our country, and historically even more, if you don't get paid much you aren't worth a damn.

When society doesn't value you as a human being, you don't value yourself as a human being.

>When society doesn't value you as a human being, you don't value yourself as a human being.

There are many cultures that don't value people based on how much they earn. I think valuing people based on economic success is largely tied to Indian and Asian culture. As a white person from a white family in the middle of the US, no one that I care about values me based on my salary. Some cultures seem to be more obsessed with economic status than others. To me, it's repulsive.

> As a white person from a white family in the middle of the US, no one that I care about values me based on my salary.

As someone of the same background and also from the middle of nowhere mid-US, I can say this is certainly true. It seems a bit different on the coasts.

That said, even my family doesn't think too highly of the unemployed, which seems a bit inconsistent.

>As a white person from a white family in the middle of the US, no one that I care about values me based on my salary.

I cannot say the same.

>There are many cultures that don't value people based on how much they earn.

But how many cultures value people regardless of who or what they are? Even if it isn't tied to financials, it is tied to something and there are the haves and the have nots. You can even artificially create such values among children if you give them information to suggest that some arbitrary characteristic is a have and competing arbitrary characteristics are have nots.