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Comment by wladimir | Hacker News Reader

but their lives are absolutely meaningless and empty

There is nothing "the economy" can do to change that, though. Feeling meaningful and full is a state of mind. And that goes more in the realm of religion and spirituality (and psychology) than materialism. It cannot be changed by any government intervention.

Some people have confused those things to the point of extremity. To take an extreme example on the other side, buddhist monks feel fine about themselves without being "productive" and hardly having any possessions.

Also, "useless" is very cruel thing to say regarding people. Who decides who is "useful" and "useless"? Can't we just as well say "everyone is useful" to make people feel better?

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In a society that values economic productivity above all else, "useless" is a very accurate term. The challenge is to convince the economically "useful" people that have to pay the taxes that support these "useless" people to keep doing that, which will get harder and harder as the "useful" people see their purchasing power dwindle.

I'm not sure what the solution to this problem would be, but I do have a suspicion that more free market economics is not it.

There is nothing inherent in that people should value economic productivity above all else. That's the gospel of the industrial revolution, and it's not really valid anymore in the (post-)information age.

If you cannot be part of "economic productivity" then it is natural to look at other ways to feel good about yourself. "useless" is a value judgment that you cannot really make about other people and causes a lot of grief.

Anyway, I was just trying to say that these concerns are orthogonal to the macro-economy. I'm with you though, that more free market economics is not a solution to anything...

The economy does a lot to give people a delusion of purpose. If u r scared that ur kids will starve, or ur wife will go without healthcare, ur focus is now on survival. If I know that "the system will take care of me and my family", I will suddenly have a lot of free time. So I now need a philosophical or religious strategy to find meaning in my life. Just consider what is already happening in the so called services economy... a lot of it is pointless paper pushing coz we have not yet simplified it to the level necessary. Just imagine if the entire banking and insurance industry was replaced by a single web scale app with a few simple rules... u'd have a huge chunk of people sitting at home. All these people "remain busy" because of the economy... I wonder whether boredom or drudgery(hand everyone spoon instead of a shovel??) is better...

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