[loup-vaillant]

> "make" money (i.e. create value)

See, the harmful confusion right there.

Making money and creating value are two separate things. There are people who create value without receiving any money in return. And there are people who receive an obscene amount of money while creating very little value — and sometimes destroying more value than they create.

Understanding that the two are separate is the only way you can question the legitimacy of our richest people. I’ll give you a hint: the most impressive CEOs journals routinely praise as geniuses, are very, very unlikely to produce as much value as the money they actually receive.

If you want to even stand a chance at critically looking at our current economic system, you absolutely need to properly separate the notions of "making money" and "creating value".

[jjeaff]

Another way to put it would be that the wealthiest people tend to own the assets that are creating lots of value. But owning is not the same thing as creating.

[felixg3]

You’re absolutely right. David Graeber’s “Bullshit Jobs” is a good take on this if one wants to start reading into it.

[astrange]

It seems to be that "bullshit jobs" isn't actually a good position for a leftist to take. You're basically saying workers don't do anything useful.

Even a more thought out form doesn't do anything class analysis didn't already do.

[loup-vaillant]

> You're basically saying workers don't do anything useful.

Not quite: bullshit jobs are when the workers themselves say their own job isn't doing anything useful. And apparently they comprise a sizeable portion of all workforce.

Of course, jobs people say are useless, jobs the workers themselves say are useless, and actually useless jobs, are 3 different sets. But I think we can confidently say something is wrong when so many workers say their own job is useless, even if they aren't: working a job you think is useless just isn't healthy.

[astrange]

This is what is known as "cope", ie, they don't feel emotionally satisfied.

Americans in particular always have pretty narcissistic ideas about what their jobs should be. You can see this from all the examples of hippies trying to start communes, which then fail because everyone appoints themselves official poet instead of farmworker.

[loup-vaillant]

> This is what is known as "cope", ie, they don't feel emotionally satisfied.

Yeah, I'm gonna need a citation for that one.