Subject: Detroit Athletes & the Realization Problem Date: Tue, 3 Mar 1998 17:00:08 -0500 From: tr@tryoung.com (T R Young) Reply-To: socgrad@csf.colorado.edu To: Sociology Graduate Students -- International Those who teach stratification, soc/sports and or econ sociology may want to consider the wages and fees of professional athletes as case in point. The Free Press has listed the 8 most highly paid athletes in Detroit... For the next few years, contracts call for big bucks: Brian Williams, Pistons $6.4 million/year Sergei Fedorov, Wings[hockey], $6.3 million/year Barry Sanders, Lions, $5.8 million/year [and worth every cent!] Grant Hill, Pistons, $5.6 million/year Scott Mitchell, Lions Q-back, $5.3 million/year Steve Yzerman, Wings, $4.4 million/year Bobby Higgenson, Tigers [baseball], $4 million/year Brendan Shanahan, Wings, only $3.8 million/year Structural-Functional Theory explains such income levels by a combination of several factors; sacrifice, technical difficulty and most interestingly, comparative worth to society. One could make an argument that each player above is more valuable to a given team than lesser paid athletes...and use the same kind of explanation. Or... One could use a marxist thesis: Capitalism, a most productive economic system, has a realization problem which can, in part, be solved by using the grace, skill, art and talent of writers, athletes, musicians and others to create demand where demand would otherwise not arise. The argument is that since capitalism creates far more goods than can workers as a class buy back given the fact that all wages, salaries, fees and other labor costs including supplier labor costs do not match the market value of the goods produced, these goods tend to pile up unsold. Then the question becomes, how to dispose of 'surplus' production. The answers are few: 1. reduce price and increase demand but that would lower profits; investors would take their money and run to more profitable lines of production. 2. sell it to the state for redistribution to the 'surplus' population. that works nicely but state debt tends to pile up. 3. workers, customers and managers can steal some of it and thus reduce supply...but again profit suffers 4. find new markets overseas...great idea unless other capitalists in other countries have the same idea then it becomes necessary for the state to use military force to protect overseas markets from 'unfair' competition. 5. use art, science, drama and social honor of 'great' athletes, actors, military and political figures to help create demand. Michael Jordan, arguably the best bb player of all time, serves excellently well the 'functional need' of capitalists to realize profit. As do Williams, Fedorov, Sanders, Hill et al. So athlete salaries do not reflect the central importance of the player to society; the role of the athlete to society; the game to society or the advertizement to society. Rather they reflect the central importance of each above to the realization problem a one firm. Now one could say as did Charlie Wilson long ago, that what is good for General Motors is good for the country and, in same fashion, what is good for Adidas, Honda or IBM is good for the country...one could if one wanted to save structural functionalism as a theory explaining income differences. The better explanation is that the art, skill, grace and rare talent of Sanders, Jordan et al can be used to generate an audience; the audience can be used to generate a market and the market can be used to solve the realization problem... ...even if the goods and services sold are of little value to society as a social and cultural complex...cigarettes, tennis shoes, beverages and such...sic transit structural- functionalism. TR Young TR Young The Red Feather Institute 8085 Essex, Weidman, Mi., 48893--ph: [517] 644 3089 Email: tr@tryoung.com