One of the most nihilistic takes I’ve seen in a long while. With “worth”, “value”, “liability” you are only talking about the narrow, economic definitions of t

One of the most nihilistic takes I’ve seen in a long while. With “worth”, “value”, “liability” you are only talking about the narrow, economic definitions of those words. The problem is not everything valuable is captured in economic expression, not everything is readily marketable, which doesn’t mean they are not valuable. And I am not being romantic here; for the longest time we suffered for not measuring the value of childbirth, mothering a newborn and general domestic labor for example. (Surrogacy being new aside, also doesn’t make a reliable proxy because it doesn’t measure mothering in situ, contractual asymmetries get priced into the transaction.) Hyperindividualistic western fantasy assumes even attachment and emotional needs can be marketed (eg therapy), but suicide rates show that traditional close-knit societies fare much better. Just because you can’t measure the dollar amount of small talk and care from your neighborhood grocer, doesn’t mean it is worthlessness. People are worthless only if you waste them. You risk wasting them when you instrumentalize and objectify them excessively, when you interject the market into relationships you shouldn’t. The waste theory is a self-fulfilling prophecy of neoliberalism. And I agree that we might be getting there if we don’t awaken from the normativity of market thinking.