[rabidsnail]

Because the parts of the economy providing food and housing take up a small fraction of the total work available to be done. The rest of the work (ie surplus) can go to one of three things:

1. "Storing food for the winter". R&D to prepare us for challenges we'll face in the future. Ex: alternative energy research. This sort of thing is extremely difficult to fund in a capitalist society. We need more of it.

2. Waste. Accounting and lawyering and sales and such.

3. Entertainment. Everything from movies to luxury goods.

If given a choice between 2 and 3, I'd pick 3 any day. I'd like for there to be more of 1, but I guess that makes me a socialist :).

I don't see any functional difference between a Farmville cow and a ceramic cow that sits on a mantlepiece. They have exactly the same practical use, but one cost way more energy to produce than the other. My argument for how Farmville will save us from global warming is a post for another time.

tl;dr: Value is what the market says it is, not what you say it is.

See also: http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2011/12/12/let_them_eat_...

[conover]

Accounting and practicing law is a waste?

[rabidsnail]

Have you ever met an accountant that gets up in the morning excited to get to accoutning? Have you ever heard someone say: "Today is my lucky day! I get to go see my accountant!"?

I'm not saying they're not necessary. But if the economy were a mechanical system, law and accounting would be the friction between the belts and the wheels that produces waste heat.

[megrimlock]

This may sound crazy, but there are people drawn to accounting or insurance who are simply numerate, who love numbers and precision and carefully designing rules that accomodate the fascinating special cases of the real world, and who do enjoy that kind of work. It sounds dreary and gray, and we like to scoff at it as bean-counting, but it does appeal to a certain detail-oriented mindset that isn't all that far off from some forms of engineering.

Here's another view: Accounting is the instrumentation that lets you make sure the machine (the business) stays calibrated, and that the inputs match up to the outputs.

[carguy1983]

I wouldn't call it waste. I would call it overhead, which is very different than waste.