alt Hacker News> I was talking to a friend of mine and I asked this. She said “of course everyone should be working, I mean, I’d like to be able to buy more stuff”
This sounds like the type of thing you hear from a person sipping a rare single-origin pour-over after their pilates class in Palo Alto.
In the real world, the average person would probably tell you something like "of course everyone should be working, I mean, I need to pay my rent, electricity bill, buy food, etc.".
Most people in this world work because they need to earn money to pay for basic necessities of life, not because they want to buy more stuff.
> Here is a very simple statement which may sound a bit mean: it is entirely feasible that giving a job to a “stupid” person, regardless of how much we try and train them, might cost the economy more than we benefit, in aggregate.
The economy is not society, though, and having a bunch of unhappy people who are poor and have nothing to do is probably not good for a country's well-being.
Until there's an alternative system that allows people to have their basic needs met without working, unemployment is a problem, and even if you had that system, we have no idea whether or not the masses will be content enough to stay sane and peaceful.
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> if you had that system, we have no idea whether or not the masses will be content enough to stay sane and peaceful.
Belgium, the Netherlands and a lot of European countries, have a "leefloon" or "bijstand". It is a monthly payment from the government if you have no other sources of income or wealth. The name means it is "pay to stay alive". It's not a lot (1518.29 dollars today for a single person), but allows for the necessities.
So what happens is not _really_ unknown.
I think you are reproducing in your own words the exact point the author was trying to make
> Until there's an alternative system that allows people to have their basic needs met without working, unemployment is a problem
Imagine there’s a ratio of that category of people that’s a more optimal ratio than zero.
I interpreted that to mean "other people should be working because it will enable me personally to buy more stuff (that they produce)", not "each person should be working because working will allow that person to buy themselves more stuff".