Every job is important beneficial for society
A subject of great debate indeed.
I think there is two sides to this.
Firstly, all jobs could theoretically be seen as equal, after all, they all contribute in some way to our society in order for it to function. Similar to division of labour in the workplace, our society’s labour is divided into specialisations which contribute to the overall workings of society.
Without the doctors people would get sick and die. Without the farmers the doctors would starve. Without the politicians our society would not be cohesive. Without retailers how would goods be distributed? There is an interconnected nature to our society whereby all jobs are equally important for society to function.
Someone must always make the food to the retailers can sell the food so the doctors can live to heal people and so the government can order society. Society is a division of specialisedlabour that has grown organically through millennia of civilisation and evolved over time. Fundamentally the premise is still the same though, despite how we divide the labour, without that specialisation and division of labour society does not work.
Capitalism allowed this division of labour organically through the motive of profit. If there is no food then there is a market for food and ultimately specialisation arises from that. If there are no doctors then is a market to exploit. Of course there are critiques and downsides to this but for the most part it works okay, especially through the regulation and guiding hand of a government.
This is where I come to my second point. Whilst all jobs contribute overall to society and specialisation allows each job to become as important as each other, it also means that some jobs ultimately require more training/experience than others and that some jobs ultimately require more socially necessary labour in order to provide a service or unit of goods. This means that they are not only more arduous but the level expertise required to perform these tasks makes specialisedlabour less common and increases it’s value.
Doctors get paid more because ultimately, much fewer people qualify to be able to become doctors and the service requires far more expertise than someone hired to answer phones at a call centre. Anyone can be trained to answer phones, there is no shortage of labour and therefore it is cheaper. Doctors are far less common, they have to be trained for years and their job can be significantly stressful and specialised - they are far more valuable.
Likewise, anyone can work at a production line boxing crackers. Labour is common and can be replaced easily. Mechanical engineers on the other hand, require years of training and are far rarer.
Of course this is a very, VERY basic explanation but there’s also marginal physical product and marginal revenue but let’s just avoid going to much into it for now. All you need to know currently is that scarcity of specialisedlabour means that those jobs are more highly valued.
The scarcity and demand for labour drives the labour markets too and determines how much a job’s wage pays. Whilst all jobs in society allow it to function, we ultimately have greater need for some jobs and some jobs are much harder to do than others requiring more training or expertise.
Feel free to correct any incorrect terminology, I’m not an economist by trade.