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Do you define the usefulness of a piece of work as "fulfills a percieved need for the individual paying for it" or as "brings added value to our society"? In t

Do you define the usefulness of a piece of work as "fulfills a percieved need for the individual paying for it" or as "brings added value to our society"? In the former case - every employee is doing useful work. The latter definition is way more restrictive.

api 15y ago
The latter. Useful means that it provides value that somehow improves the human condition. Everything from food to fuel to art to architecture is that. Random junk on the net is not. A central fallacy of present-day economics is the assumption that all economic activity is of equal value. GDP is a good example: A million dollars spent on healthcare increases GDP by a million. A million dollars spent on war increases GDP by a million. A million dollars spent on rubber dog crap increases GDP by a million. But these transactions are not of equal value. I personally think that economic central planners and GDP growth targets are a major underlying cause of all this useless make-work. I call it the gerbil wheel economy. Run, gerbil, run! Gotta make the opaque meaningless numbers bigger! You can see it very clearly in very centrally planned economies that worship GDP growth, like China. They have entire abandoned cities-- things built for nobody, just to make opaque numbers bigger.
- JoelSutherland 15y ago
  Are you sure? The millionaire rubber dog crap inventor just died and gave everything he had to malaria vaccines. My point isn't that all dollars spent are equal, but that the world is so complicated that it is not easy to make a snap judgement about where the next big difference will come from.
  - 5l 15y ago
    And the glazier who fixed all the broken windows also left his money to good causes.
  - api 15y ago
    That's a low probability event, and doesn't affect the thesis much. We're talking overall here.
- anamax 15y ago
  > A million dollars spent on healthcare increases GDP by a million. A million dollars spent on war increases GDP by a million. A million dollars spent on rubber dog crap increases GDP by a million. But these transactions are not of equal value. Actually, they are. The folks who spent a million dollars on rubber dog crap could have spent it on something else but they spent it on rubber dog crap. That million dollars is the value of that rubber dog crap.
  - cma 15y ago
    Rubber dog crap is a bad example; how about orthodontics? There most of the value is in increasing your "prettiness rank", but there is a positional externality in that you necessarily decrease someone else's rank.
    - jarin 15y ago
      You don't think that raising the overall self-esteem of a population has a net positive effect on their society's condition? I mean yes you could argue that it might contribute to a class divide, but I think orthodontic treatment is much more affordable for the middle class than it was 20 years ago.
    - anamax 15y ago
      A lot of orthodontics is fixing things so someone can chew correctly, reducing pain etc. I'll assume that you didn't mean those folks.... Maybe you meant cosmetic dentistry, but even there, should we forever brand someone who didn't take care of their teeth earlier in life? What about folks who were given tetracycline when they were kids (which permanently stains their teeth)? Maybe there's a good example in dentistry, but let's see one. As to your "positional" argument, how are you separating out the "bad" positional change from "her teeth kept us from seeing his superior skills"? Or, is the latter also bad?
    - ianferrel 15y ago
      If there's value to people in looking at beautiful artwork, isn't there value in looking at (more) beautiful people? Improvement of one's appearance isn't entirely relative to others. There are absolute gains.

api 15y ago

The latter. Useful means that it provides value that somehow improves the human condition. Everything from food to fuel to art to architecture is that. Random junk on the net is not. A central fallacy of present-day economics is the assumption that all economic activity is of equal value. GDP is a good example: A million dollars spent on healthcare increases GDP by a million. A million dollars spent on war increases GDP by a million. A million dollars spent on rubber dog crap increases GDP by a million. But these transactions are not of equal value. I personally think that economic central planners and GDP growth targets are a major underlying cause of all this useless make-work. I call it the gerbil wheel economy. Run, gerbil, run! Gotta make the opaque meaningless numbers bigger! You can see it very clearly in very centrally planned economies that worship GDP growth, like China. They have entire abandoned cities-- things built for nobody, just to make opaque numbers bigger.

JoelSutherland 15y ago
Are you sure? The millionaire rubber dog crap inventor just died and gave everything he had to malaria vaccines. My point isn't that all dollars spent are equal, but that the world is so complicated that it is not easy to make a snap judgement about where the next big difference will come from.
- 5l 15y ago
  And the glazier who fixed all the broken windows also left his money to good causes.
- api 15y ago
  That's a low probability event, and doesn't affect the thesis much. We're talking overall here.
anamax 15y ago
> A million dollars spent on healthcare increases GDP by a million. A million dollars spent on war increases GDP by a million. A million dollars spent on rubber dog crap increases GDP by a million. But these transactions are not of equal value. Actually, they are. The folks who spent a million dollars on rubber dog crap could have spent it on something else but they spent it on rubber dog crap. That million dollars is the value of that rubber dog crap.
- cma 15y ago
  Rubber dog crap is a bad example; how about orthodontics? There most of the value is in increasing your "prettiness rank", but there is a positional externality in that you necessarily decrease someone else's rank.
  - jarin 15y ago
    You don't think that raising the overall self-esteem of a population has a net positive effect on their society's condition? I mean yes you could argue that it might contribute to a class divide, but I think orthodontic treatment is much more affordable for the middle class than it was 20 years ago.
  - anamax 15y ago
    A lot of orthodontics is fixing things so someone can chew correctly, reducing pain etc. I'll assume that you didn't mean those folks.... Maybe you meant cosmetic dentistry, but even there, should we forever brand someone who didn't take care of their teeth earlier in life? What about folks who were given tetracycline when they were kids (which permanently stains their teeth)? Maybe there's a good example in dentistry, but let's see one. As to your "positional" argument, how are you separating out the "bad" positional change from "her teeth kept us from seeing his superior skills"? Or, is the latter also bad?
  - ianferrel 15y ago
    If there's value to people in looking at beautiful artwork, isn't there value in looking at (more) beautiful people? Improvement of one's appearance isn't entirely relative to others. There are absolute gains.