"We'd like to pretend everyone is a self-motivated software engineer who will create value for the world for personal fulfillment." Considered strictly (litera

"We'd like to pretend everyone is a self-motivated software engineer who will create value for the world for personal fulfillment." Considered strictly (literally "everyone", specifically "software engineer"), it may actually be the case that literally no one believes that. Let's consider a weaker interpretation, more precisely phrased "enough people are sufficiently self-motivated to create value for the world that the perceived decrease in productivity due to workers opting out of traditional employment will be substantially made up for by the other things these people choose to be productive at." And contrary to your claims, the data you provided not only fails to show that this is false, but lends some support to the notion. From the same paragraph whence you draw the 13% figure: "Because the primary earner typically worked many more hours than the secondary and tertiary earners, this implied a relatively small reduction in work effort by primary earners."* "The general result that secondary earners tend to take some part of the increased family income in the form of more time for household production, particularly staying home with newborns, was found in all the experiments" To a large extent, "Mincome reduced work effort" in the same sense that a man marrying his housekeeper reduces GDP. It does not mean people are being correspondingly less productive! It is also not clear to me how volunteering would have been counted towards work effort, and non-commercial art almost certainly would not. Regarding "software engineer" in particular, the study took place in the 1970s. For many well-paid jobs, the initial capital requirements look qualitatively different.