Glenn Reynolds writes, in reference to a predicted threat to the technological leadership of the US:

The big problem is that the American workplace doesn’t make technical jobs attractive enough. The pay is okay, but less than that of other professionals, like lawyers. And the working conditions for engineers and scientists are generally quite poor — too much Dilbert, not enough Skunk Works. They act as if there’s a positive conspiracy to take all the fun out of it, according several of my friends who work in the area.

Well, I have had this discussion with Instapundit before. I just don’t understand how a market-oriented guy can utter formulations like this. “The American workplace” isn’t some guy with a green eyeshade. Unless Glenn wants to see a Japan, Inc.-type “investing in winners” and pay-scale-setting government policy instituted here, which I certainly know he doesn’t, what is the point of this?

It would seem there is some structural reason that technology workers are compensated at the level they are here, considering all factors (e.g., the cost of living), if indeed it’s the case that they are undercompensated.

Bashing lawyers, again, is not the answer, because not only we can never make technology jobs competitive with the best professional jobs, but we can never make the gap here look anything like the gap in the developing world, i.e., among our putative competitors. They are not, in the long run, going to be one of possibly two or three global centers for international finance nor the sort of commerce that makes business enterprises find it worth paying attorneys $400 – $1000 an hour to protect their interests.

In short, let’s stop comparing apples and oranges. Envy is not a basis for policy-making! Like you, Glenn, I sometimes wish I were fresh out of a good law school (as we both once were, if not quite the same law school) and contemplating those starting salaries and bonuses, just for a little while. But those times, for both of us, are rare; life is basically good as a human being, isn’t it? Even human beings with science degrees would agree.

UPDATE:  One Instapundit writes in to suggest a secular reason for the problem:  Legislation such as Sarbanes-Oxley.  Well, you can indeed blame the lawyers for that one.