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> So honestly, I would argue that paying people to dig ditches (vs do literally nothing else, though at that point you might as well just give them cash) is in
by repsilat 7y ago
> So honestly, I would argue that paying people to dig ditches (vs do literally nothing else, though at that point you might as well just give them cash) is in and of itself beneficial
This is the point -- paying people to dig ditches breaks down into two activities:
- Paying people, which is net zero benefit. (Otherwise we could all sit in a circle and pay each other to riches.)
- Doing useless work, which is net negative. (Effort, materials and time spent that coukd have been spent on leisure or actually productive ends.)
GDP is obviously a bad measure here. For the same problem stated another way, Google and Wikipedia are free, but increase productivity and aggregate wellbeing immeasurably.
- foota 7y agoPaying people is only net zero if the people being paid go and do the same thing the people paying would have done with that money. In this case, I'm arguing because of the economic class of the ditch diggers that this is not the case. The ditch diggers will spend the money locally, rather than saving it, on things that give them greater utility than what the people paying for ditches would have gotten (which is most likely just saving it). I agree asking people to dig ditches for the money is stupid, but in reality they'd either be doing something productive that wouldn't have otherwise been done for structural reasons (building national parks, windmills, solar panels, etc., things where there is a positive externality that prevents the market from doing it) or receiving the money for free.