[maxerickson]

What do you do about the modest amount I spend on blood pressure medicine making me feel better all the time, which probably makes me more productive at work?

I'm getting more benefit than the cost of that healthcare (I'm asserting that this is true, I feel a lot better with the medicine) and that ends up feeding into the economy.

[robocat]

Good point.

I reckon I'm trying to think about the dependency graph of necessity. I suspect you are too.

A monetary economy has productive sectors and non-productive sectors. Most healthcare is non-productive from the point of view of an economy. Healthcare for workers and future workers is economically productive (from an economy's point-of-view). Maybe my conceptual cleaving is poor (black n white binary splits are usually misleading).

Of course ultimately most of what an economy delivers to us individually is monetarily uneconomic (is art or entertainment necessary?). Me confused.

Now I feel bad that I've wandered off into philosophy (which I usually find interesting but non-useful).