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Comment by papapra | Hacker News Reader

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...

What is the "purpose" of that child

To generate future GDP (and thus tax revenue).

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

Why not say that instead?

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