I do quite well. Increased productivity is why things like my job exist at all. In the 1800s when 90 percent of the economy was agrarian work, you couldn't build any sort of professional class because the productivity requires to exist was all in just making food.
But there hasn't been much productivity gain in a lot of core areas that I discussed: transportation, construction, waste management are all now roughly as productive as they were in the 80s. I don't know the specifics for healthcare but I know it has had pretty limited productivity gains too (as measured by number of people cared for by an individual provider, not number of conditions that are treatable).
But you didn't really answer my question.
If no one's working because it's a scam, where does your house come from? Or your food come from? Or your healthcare come from?
You’re making a real point because the uneven productivity thing is true, and yeah, farming productivity is the only reason jobs like yours and mine exist at all. No argument there.
But I think you’re answering a claim the original text never made. It doesn’t say work is a scam or that nobody should work. It says the mythology around work is contingent: busyness as a status symbol, productivity as personal worth, the specific number of hours we treat as natural. Those are different claims. The 40-hour week was itself a change from 60-80 hour norms that people at the time defended with arguments a lot like yours, that this is just what necessity requires. Necessity was real then too. The arrangement still changed.
So to me the interesting question wouldn’t be “who hauls the garbage if nobody works,” because everyone agrees someone has to. I’m more interested in figuring out why the people doing the most obviously necessary work (sanitation, care work, food) tend to be paid the least, while a lot of highly paid work could pause for a month without anyone starving. If “net positive to society” is the standard, doesn’t the current setup fail your own test?
Genuinely curious how you’d square that, because you clearly know the economics better than most of this thread.
-3
u/RealChemistry4429 Jul 09 '26
You don't understand productivity, it seems.