I think you make a very important point that I haven't seen in any of the other comments: There are lots of goods that are not traded within the economy.
The original comment is valid, many people are not relevant to the economy and indeed there are lots of articles on how we are all just wasting our time in meaningless jobs. Some studies have even found that certain jobs (like investment banking) have a net negative creation value.
Isn't the kind of activity like reading your child a story, working for free in a social group and the entire maker movement targeted at the kinds of goods that are both great and beautiful and desirable but also non-essential? Exactly the kinds of goods that people will stop paying for when they have less money to spend.
So maybe we just need to find a way to distribute the essentials and some money differently so that we can all work on beautiful but useless things instead of trying to get us all the kind of job that everybody will immediately admit they don't even want.
The original comment is valid, many people are not relevant to the economy and indeed there are lots of articles on how we are all just wasting our time in meaningless jobs. Some studies have even found that certain jobs (like investment banking) have a net negative creation value.
Isn't the kind of activity like reading your child a story, working for free in a social group and the entire maker movement targeted at the kinds of goods that are both great and beautiful and desirable but also non-essential? Exactly the kinds of goods that people will stop paying for when they have less money to spend.
So maybe we just need to find a way to distribute the essentials and some money differently so that we can all work on beautiful but useless things instead of trying to get us all the kind of job that everybody will immediately admit they don't even want.
Just some random thoughts. ;)