[ExI] keynes vs hayek again, was: RE: 3d printers for sale

Charlie Stross charlie.stross at gmail.com
Mon Aug 27 21:04:41 UTC 2012


On 27 Aug 2012, at 16:29, Stefano Vaj <stefano.vaj at gmail.com> wrote:

> On 27 August 2012 17:11, Charlie Stross <charlie.stross at gmail.com> wrote:
> Back off even further: how does one define "contribute to the community they live in"? (Is a rentier with a private income who devotes their idle life to painting or writing fiction -- and is therefore able to produce works of art that entertain people but don't necessarily generate enough income to live on -- a parasite? What about a rentier with a private income who generates employment in the cocaine trade?) Or how about the traditional "vicar's wife" or "first lady"? Someone who probably isn't working for a living but who is making themselves useful indirectly?
> 
> Good questions. And the answers are...?

If I had easy answers I wouldn't be asking the question. (Nor would Anders need to equivocate in answering it.)

I suspect that like many problems in human social behaviour this is a "wicked" problem -- there's no single right one-size-fits-all-cases answer and, moreover, trying to apply any given solution changes the phase space within which the problem is defined and generates new undesirable edge conditions.

> Or even further: *why* do we consider it useful or morally good for everyone to make a tangible contribution?
> 
> In fact, most of "us" (meaning western citizens) do not, and could not care less. This is simply a traditional socialist and/or communitarian tenet, probably out of fashion by now.

Then why are our governments so obsessed with the unemployment figures? Or with mandatory mass education to provide a useful work-force?

It seems to me that it's not so much out of fashion as so totally pervasive that our relationship with the idea of work is that of fishes with water.


-- Charlie



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