In today's fast-changing economic society, a popular phrase vividly and poignantly reveals the real situation of certain industries and occupational groups - they are experiencing the dilemma of "selling white powder with the heart and earning money from selling cabbage". This sentence depicts in an exaggerated and graphic way the remarkable asymmetry between the effort and the economic reward.
First of all, practitioners in emerging industries often face such a dilemma. For example, in the field of Internet and technology entrepreneurship, entrepreneurs are working day and night to develop products, pursue innovation, bear huge market risks and uncertainties, and expect to stand out in the fierce competitive environment. However, there are very few successful start-ups, and most start-ups have either made little or no money under the baptism of the market, and their efforts are in stark contrast to the actual economic gains.
Similarly, in traditional industries, especially the self-employed who are struggling to survive in the process of digital transformation, in order to adapt to changes in market demand, continuously improve service quality, and update business philosophy, they are limited by factors such as the tightening of industry profit margins, the diversification of consumer demand, and the cost of **, which often makes it difficult to achieve the expected economic benefits, and the hard work in exchange for only a relatively limited income.
For example, we can focus on the teaching profession. In the field of education, many front-line teachers are responsible for shaping the pillars of the future society, not only preparing lessons, teaching classes, and grading homework, but also paying attention to the individual differences of each student, conducting psychological counseling, and participating in various teaching seminars and training activities.
Especially in today's era of rapid knowledge updating, teachers also need to continue to learn on their own and improve their professional quality to adapt to new educational needs. However, in reality, the actual income of many teachers does not match their efforts and social responsibilities.
Their investment in education is often like the hardship of "selling white powder", which requires great effort and time cost, but their wages may only be equivalent to the level of "selling cabbage", and it is difficult to achieve a real return on labor value.
Another example is the group of designers in freelancers, who may spend countless days and nights researching customer demands, market trends, and creative solutions in order to complete a satisfactory creative design work, and repeatedly revise it until it is perfectly presented.
However, in a highly competitive market environment, their services** are sometimes depressed by the pressure of low-price competition in the industry, resulting in actual benefits that are not proportional to the effort invested in the creative process.
In today's entertainment industry, traffic stars stand in stark contrast to the above examples. Traffic stars often enjoy high attention and commercial value in the market because of their huge fan base and high popularity. Their every move can spark heated discussions and even affect social trends and consumer trends.
For example, some top traffic stars participate in a commercial event, shoot a TV series or movie, and endorse a brand advertisement, and their income may be as high as millions or even tens of millions, and this kind of "appearance fee" or "remuneration" is an astronomical amount that is unattainable for many ordinary people. Their social ** dynamics can easily bring huge traffic and bring high income to merchants, so they have great monetization power in terms of bringing goods and promotion.
On the other hand, although many industry practitioners work hard and pay no less than the efforts and wisdom of traffic stars, their income levels are far inferior to those of these stars due to factors such as the nature of their profession, market demand, and the profit distribution structure of the industry. This phenomenon highlights the huge gap in the return of labor value between different industries and different positions, and is also one of the hot issues in the current discussion of social resource allocation mechanism.
In short, there is a significant difference in economic income between traffic stars and some ordinary workers, which not only reflects the unique business model and market rules of the modern entertainment industry, but also reflects the differentiated evaluation criteria of the society's overall perception of the value of different industries and occupations.
These examples vividly illustrate the "value paradox" faced by certain occupations in modern society, that is, the huge efforts of workers are not rewarded financially, which is undoubtedly an important issue that deserves the attention of the whole society and seeks solutions.
In addition, this proverb also points to a profound problem in modern society, that is, the mismatch between the value of labor and the market. Workers' hard work is not always rewarded with monetization, and this separation between "value" and "value" challenges our understanding of the principle of fair distribution. It warns us that when formulating policies and evaluating the results of labor, we need to measure the actual contributions of individuals or teams more comprehensively and scientifically, and ensure that their efforts can be translated into due economic benefits and social status through reasonable mechanisms.
To sum up, the social phenomenon of "selling white flour and earning money from selling cabbage" calls us to think deeply about how to improve the market economy system and establish a more fair and reasonable labor remuneration system, so that every worker who struggles in various fields can get matching returns, so as to stimulate the enthusiasm and creativity of the whole society, and jointly promote the sustained and healthy development of the economy and the harmonious and stable progress of society.