You're right, running now a farm that is profitable and can stay on the market is very different from doing so 200 years ago. But knowledge is just one aspect. The other aspect I mentioned is having less people in the field than what the market asks for. In the specific case of farmers, I think that modern farms are so much more efficient that we need way less than before, even if the world's population grew. So, while there's a gap between the knowledge required and the earnings, I think this can be explained by farms having a much greater output now, and so the market doesn't ask for more farms than what we have. This could be false at a global scale, but I think it is true at a country-level scale in most of the developed countries. Hence why farmers aren't paid much in those countries.
Farmers aren't really paid, they sell goods at market prices. Modern farms are more similar to operating a manufacturing business than they are to a salaried position or profession. They don't earn high incomes compared to white collar professions but they do have high revenues and they pay themselves a reasonable middle class income on average with some added benefits from owning large assets and land. The important part about comparing farmers to programmers is that they are both now operating in highly competitive markets with high automation where a single individual can leverage their knowledge and ability using that automation to produce many times more what a person could using only their own labor.
> Farmers aren't really paid, they sell goods at market prices.
"Programmers aren't really paid, they sell services at market prices." — I guess nobody gets paid?
As a farmer myself, when I give someone something I produced and they give me back something in return, I consider myself to be paid. If I did not receive much value in return for what I gave, I'd reasonably consider myself to have not been paid well. I have never met a farmer that would consider that usage unusual. Payment refers to a transaction within the realm of a human activity. The good or service that is being traded between humans is immaterial. While you are free to define words as you see fit, your assertion doesn't really reflect how this is actually used in practice, generally. The rest of the earlier comment makes it clear that the commenter understands how a farm business works.
Did someone seriously just down-mod a farmer in a sub-discussion about running a farm?
PS To the "clear-thinking" guy at the top of this thread...this is why...you only think your thinking is clear. If its a topic you know nothing about, devs (not necessarily you) tend to assume there isn't anything to know and that's almost never true.
No, nobody would seriously press a button that does nothing but increment/decrement an integer. Imagine the thought process that would have to go into thinking that was something worthy of one's time and attention. Not even those who struggle with clear thinking would be able to come up with a story so outlandish and contrived as to start seeing it as an activity to want to get involved in.
It is easy to accidentally press the button and not notice, though.
Did you seriously just appeal to authority yourself?
I'm not the farmer who posted...so no.
What he means to say is that because you are a farmer you are a member of the capital holding classes rather than the lumpen proletariat.
</sarcasm>
Most programmers are of the capital holding class too. At very least they will own a computer, which is all the capital you need for 99% of what programmers do. There are exceptions, but there are also exceptions in farming.
The capital holding class isn't anyone who holds capital. It's anyone whose main function in society is based on holding capital. Think of a landlord.
Land isn't traditionally considered capital. The buckets are normally land, labor, and capital. The closest thing we broadly see to someone whose function is holding capital is someone who owns stock in the stock market. It is likely that most programmers own stock. If I were a betting man, I expect that programmers have more impact on capital than farmers do. But we still have to split hairs over what "main" means.
One interpretation, which is what I suspect most would go to, is where one's income is primarily derived from owning stock. So, in other words, old, retired people. But I don't think anyone here was thinking about the retired. The discussion was about people actively producing food and software.
Another possible interpretation is about impact. If those stocks didn't exist, a lot of the capital wouldn't have been able to be created, and thus there wouldn't have been jobs to go with it; meaning that owning the capital makes it one's main function as without it one wouldn't have a job to go to. But I can already hear you furiously typing how that isn't a satisfactory take. I'd agree.
Maybe it's about attention? Someone who actively watches over to their capital would be seen as it being their main function, while someone who leaves their capital ownership up to a financial advisor so they don't have to think about it wouldn't. But then we're back to the computer. Most programmers watch over that capital, if nothing else. That doesn't really work either.
The only remaining interpretation I can come up, given the connotations often associated with landlord, is a group of people not like by another group of people. But that doesn't have anything to do with capital at all, so... Consider me stumped on what this has to do with the discussion (if we are to ignore the explicit sarcasm involved).