3 ms·

Making useless clutter is not productive.

• DenisM 18y ago
  By "productively occupied" I mean "people do something that they think is useful". This in contrast to watching TV where people are occupied but do not have illusion of doing anything. I believe this distinction is important to the well-being of those people and the community they are in - prolonged idleness has negative effects.
• bwd 18y ago
  Who decides what is useless? If I compare the enjoyment that I receive from having an iPod and being able to listen to any song I own at pretty much any time I feel like it against the amount of labor that I performed in order to acquire it, I feel like I came away with a pretty good deal. I expect that there is an item or an experience that you value which could only be purchased with labor via money that I would consider useless. That is the whole point of having markets, so that people can make their own decisions about what is and isn't useful to them.
• jhancock 18y ago
  Useless stuff is productive within the bounds of the existing economy. However, that economy is provably unsustainable. Best to move on and try to build an economy that is sustainable. I suspect such an animal will have a far higher useful::useless ratio.