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Comment by accordionclown | Hacker News Reader

this idea that people are "useless" if they can't be employed by a soul-sucking corporation to make money for it is patently offensive.

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> this idea that people are "useless" if they can't be employed by a soul-sucking corporation to make money

You are right. It is a travesty. However, a frighteningly significant, most likely the majority, of people in the United States equate your worth with your economic success in capitalist society....like you are your score in some shitty video game.

He means not important for the political and economical system, not literary useless.

What about someone who leaves work to raise their child? Just because they aren't making money doesn't mean their work is unimportant.

That's correct. If I recall correctly, Marx was one of the first to note that the value of this kind of work (which he called "reproductive work" if I'm translating the German "Reproduktionsarbeit" correctly) is not reflected by our economic system (in terms of monetary output) properly.

Tangentially related: Childcare subsidies are a big win for governments because it lets them convert what would otherwise be "unpaid" labour into something that appears in GDP.

Better than that; by transferring a bit of money from taxpayers you can account for wages from 2 paid jobs, the mother's and the carer's.

There is a sort of neoliberal logic to it of course; in early childcare in my country, ratios are 4:1 - there is an "efficiency gain" if the mother earns more than childcare fees for the children under care.

But of course childcare availability is certainly not a bad thing even if there might be agendas in play.

But why are they raising a child? What is the "purpose" of that child? To be nurtured to the point where it can breed and create a child who itself needs to be nurtured to the point where it can breed and create a child who itself...

This is indeed the biological imperative bestowed upon us by our genes (and similarly for almost all the other species).

What is the "purpose" of that child

To generate future GDP (and thus tax revenue).

Why not say that instead?

> employed by a soul-sucking corporation to make money

AKA providing a service or product to the society. They must be useful to their friends and family, of course - but they're sure as hell useless to another anonymous person.

I agree. Perhaps Mr Harari wrote that to provoke the readers. The next sentence is: «People who are not just unemployed, but unemployable.» – so perhaps a better term is the «unemployable class».

Useless class is catchier. I like it.

Catchier yes but imprecise and moralising. What if you have been born with an impairment which makes it difficult for employers to take you? You don't want to be called useless because of that.

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