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> But I can't see what is what "the economy" has given to us in return. Stuff. You like stuff, I like stuff. If you had more stuff of one kind you could do d

by ajross 2y ago

> But I can't see what is what "the economy" has given to us in return. Stuff. You like stuff, I like stuff. If you had more stuff of one kind you could do different stuff, good stuff, even. And the people out there doing good stuff could do even more if they had more stuff to do it with. Everywhere you look, people like stuff. People with more stuff are happier on average, every time it's measured. People with serious stuff deficits end up being the ones to start wars, even. "The Economy" is just the stuff. There's no magic here. You're imagining a villain, but it's all just stuff.

roywiggins 2y ago
It's stuff, but most importantly, food and shelter. It's the thing that builds places to live and claws calories out of the ground. When the economy grinds to a halt people start to go hungry. (People do go hungry anyway. We often do kind of a bad job feeding everyone, considering the enormous technological and logistical resources available now, but that's a historical anomaly)
rflrob 2y ago
To tag on, the economy gives us more than just physical "stuff" (though that's one of the easiest things to measure). Do you enjoy travel? How about clean water, yoga classes, or therapy? What about the ability to post a message to complete strangers over the internet? As much as we could, in theory, do all of those things without having an economy to support it, money is a shockingly good way to give you whatever it is that you value. Yes, some people have more money than they know what to do with (and, I would argue, than is good for them or us), but I've seen no reasonable suggestions that as many of us can have what we want without a reasonably open market economy. I don't think we're at a local optimum in the fine details of the rules for that economy, but I don't think moving to a whole different part of the possibility space is likely to be better than where we are now.

by ajross 2y ago

roywiggins 2y ago

It's stuff, but most importantly, food and shelter. It's the thing that builds places to live and claws calories out of the ground. When the economy grinds to a halt people start to go hungry. (People do go hungry anyway. We often do kind of a bad job feeding everyone, considering the enormous technological and logistical resources available now, but that's a historical anomaly)

rflrob 2y ago

To tag on, the economy gives us more than just physical "stuff" (though that's one of the easiest things to measure). Do you enjoy travel? How about clean water, yoga classes, or therapy? What about the ability to post a message to complete strangers over the internet? As much as we could, in theory, do all of those things without having an economy to support it, money is a shockingly good way to give you whatever it is that you value. Yes, some people have more money than they know what to do with (and, I would argue, than is good for them or us), but I've seen no reasonable suggestions that as many of us can have what we want without a reasonably open market economy. I don't think we're at a local optimum in the fine details of the rules for that economy, but I don't think moving to a whole different part of the possibility space is likely to be better than where we are now.