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Economists call this sort of labor "goon work". This include PR specialists, lawyers, police, private security, alarm system salesmen, etc. Goon work produce
by opwieurposiu 2y ago
Economists call this sort of labor "goon work". This include PR specialists, lawyers, police, private security, alarm system salesmen, etc.
Goon work produces nothing, so it is a net drag on the economy. The % of goon jobs increases as wealth inequality increases.
Some amount of goon work may be required due to bad actors stealing stuff, hard to tell what the optimal number is.
Rent seeking is a net drag on the economy as well and goons enable rent seeking.
- DontchaKnowit 2y agoPolice produce nothing? What are you talking about? Lawuers produce nothin? How the hell would either of those be considered goon work? This is nonsense
- zardo 2y agoWhat do they produce?
- Two4 2y agoI think some law work is non-goon: contract law, family law, human rights law, to name a few
- zardo 2y agoIf the idea is that "goon" work is work that exists to deal with people behaving in ways you don't like, those all involve some goon work.
- MichaelZuo 2y agoThen wouldn’t all jobs include some “goon work”? Even the front desk secretary of a mid size tech company has to deal with the occassional deranged person wandering in.
- jjk166 2y agoSure, and when they are doing that they are doing goon work. The rest of the time they're doing what they are actually employed to do. All jobs are made up of numerous tasks, but just because the CEO tidies his desk periodically does not make him a janitorial worker.
- MichaelZuo 2y agoSo who then gets to decide the threshold of time that qualifies?
- krapp 2y ago"Goon work" is not a legal or scientific term of art, there is no qualified authority deciding on a threshold of time under which an objective definition is determined. It's not like there's a "model goon" somewhere like there is a model kilogram.
- MichaelZuo 2y agoIf that’s the case, then how is it any more meaningful than any other random utterance? e.g. Magical unicorn work, lizardmen work, etc…
- jjk166 2y agoThe same people who decided the threshold of time where things stop being current and start being past. It's language, it's describing an abstract concept.
- MichaelZuo 2y agoHow do you know it’s the same people? There are an infinite number of possible abstract concepts.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- EA-3167 2y agoAs a warning to all people seeking to verify the claim that economists call this "goon work"... do not just google "Goon work". At the very least, don't do it at work or on a work device. Trust me.
- iab 2y agohard lesson to learn
- verall 2y agoI believe the proper term is "guard labor".
- opwieurposiu 2y agoYou are right, "guard labor" is what is traditionally called. I think I got "Goon" in my head from reading that "Bullshit Jobs" book.
- sneedle 2y ago[dead]
- kcoddington 2y agoCouldn't the same be said for something like medical professions or cyber security? The point isn't to produce something, it's to protect something from being negatively impacted. Or to respond in some way to assess the impact and remediate. Defending against and responding to harm almost never produces anything but is almost always necessary to have. However, if your comment was more aimed at the consultant being an inherently misaligned figure with a larger capacity to do harm than good, I don't completely disagree.