| Not all needs can just be covered by the economy, of course. You cannot make people respect or love someone.
I was talking purely about basic physical needs such as enough varied good food and decent shelter.
As your link says, 'Man is a perpetually wanting animal.' I would say a desirable job is one with - mostly pleasant tasks, - good working conditions (not hard on the body (heavy lifting and bad positions, no natural light, noisy, bad air quality, ..) and mind (bad stress, bad social fit, ..), - good relationships with the people around you, (and the ability to leave if they don't work for you) - a good amount of agency (where 'good' might differ from person to person), - achievable and worthwhile goals that do not feel like 'bullshit work', with a good feedback loop, - and probably more I cannot think of off the top of my head right now. (Respect and reward of other people is definitively a big plus, but if you yourself think your job is worthwhile it's probably enough to count as desirable.) Most of these are not material rewards (though not having them can increase profit). If the only reason somebody does a specific job at all is money, the above conditions are not met/the person is not actively happy about doing it, and it can be done by a machine just as easily, I say we shouldn't have a need for this person to do it. Still, current society demands people have a job, any job, or even several, as a value in itself. How the profit from work done is distributed is whole other (but connected) story. (Concerning your last question, I would argue that this disconnect to profit is already the case for many many people.) Sorry for not writing clearly, this topic would probably warrant a seminar with lots of beer and reading at least. |