![marx](http://media.salon.com/2014/04/karl_marx.jpg)

Ever since I joined Steemit, I've run into posts and comments, complaining about the payoffs for some "bad posts". The reasoning is usually something along the lines of that the post was too short, too lazy, just plain bad, etc.

The thing is, though, that Steemit is very much a market - that consists of people with different tastes and values. Just because you think a certain post is bad, doesn't mean it's "objectively" bad, because such a thing doesn't even exist.

**This is because value is subjective.**

I can prove it with the following analogy:

A man who is dying in a desert is offered a glass of water. He is likely willing to pay whatever he has on him for that glass of water, because it is extremely valuable to him at that moment.

A week later, the same man is swimming in a lake and offered the same glass of water. It's unlikely he's willing to pay anything for it, since it doesn't offer him value at that specific moment.

The lesson being that the glass of water doesn't have an "intrinsic" value that is always the same, regardless of situation.

A joke post can cheer someone up at a moment where he or she needs cheering up. Someone else may not even crack a smile at it. The joke is not objectively funny or unfunny, it simply varies from person to person.

This reminds me of people complaining about how some people work "harder" than some other people who make more money. But it's never about working "hard", **it's about working valuably**.

Let's say I come up with a killer idea for a simple mobile app that I can program in a day, and make as much money as someone carrying crates around for no reason makes in a month. Sure, the guy carrying the crates does more physically demanding work that can be called "working hard", but what does it really mean? Outside of slogans learned at public school like "Work HARD and you will succeed!" it doesn't mean anything.

The only thing that matters is the value that you create while you work at whatever is that you're working on.

I honestly thing that the idea of "working hard" is one of the most harmful ideas in modern society that gets drilled into our heads as a kid. Kids should be encouraged to work smart, not hard. Sure, you can combine the two, maybe you even should, but we should value working smart over working hard.

So, yeah. Karl Marx can eat my shorts.