I have no objection to hiring people to build useful stuff.
That prospect differs from a "job guarantee" precisely where that stuff is not sufficiently useful. In the margin there, I object to paying people to take time and effort away from places they may find more value, to do things that are of minimal value, in the name of "dignity." In fact, I think paying for useless work is destructive of precisely that dignity (along with a pile of economic value).
"That prospect differs from a "job guarantee" precisely where that stuff is not sufficiently useful. In the margin there, I object to paying people to take time and effort away from places they may find more value, to do things that are of minimal value, in the name of "dignity." In fact, I think paying for useless work is destructive of precisely that dignity (along with a pile of economic value)."
So you are saying, in essence, that people's art projects, poetry and one person startups and time spent watching daytime TV are, on average, more useful than projects like the lincoln tunnel, schools, hospitals and bridges and you object to resources being taken from one to build the other?
That prospect differs from a "job guarantee" precisely where that stuff is not sufficiently useful. In the margin there, I object to paying people to take time and effort away from places they may find more value, to do things that are of minimal value, in the name of "dignity." In fact, I think paying for useless work is destructive of precisely that dignity (along with a pile of economic value).