How is wealth imaginary in economics?
Daniel: "I will return to my webpage designer just one more time. They live in a house (from which they work). They wear clothes. They eat food. They have a computer which runs on electricity. Just by living a modern life they are having an impact on the environment. What they then do for a living utilises only those things they consume just by living and as a result is only as environmentally degrading as them living. Nobody says they have to work this way. They could have had some other job that has its own additional environmental impact. But they do a job that arises merely from a small modification to existing home life."
and
"The webpage designer gets an income from nothing but it is an income others are happy to pay them and that others are then happy to take in exchange for other products."
The web-designer of your example is not paid nothing. The web designer does not make something from nothing. Simply by saying that the web designer uses specific resources to make something instead of making nothing does not mean that they have not used resources.
That someone uses the same resources and produces nothing deos not mean that the resources that that person used cost nothing. The resources have to be paid for by someone, somewhere along the line. And that's where the social security thing comes in. Recreational surfing cannot be compared with income generating work, even if it is of the same ilk, simply because the discussion is about levels of industry, and not about working longer hours or making hobbies pay.
That they are paid to make something using the resources means that the resources of someone, somewhere, is covering the cost of their wage. If the productive value of website more than covers the cost of it's inception and maintenence, then someone, somewhere reaps a benifit. But the benifit they reap, be it by way of customers choosing their product or service over that of another provider or if the website generated previously non-existent subjective human desires for the advertised product or service, the discretionary spening thus gained is diverted from elsewhere in the economy.
and
"The webpage designer gets an income from nothing but it is an income others are happy to pay them and that others are then happy to take in exchange for other products."
The web-designer of your example is not paid nothing. The web designer does not make something from nothing. Simply by saying that the web designer uses specific resources to make something instead of making nothing does not mean that they have not used resources.
That someone uses the same resources and produces nothing deos not mean that the resources that that person used cost nothing. The resources have to be paid for by someone, somewhere along the line. And that's where the social security thing comes in. Recreational surfing cannot be compared with income generating work, even if it is of the same ilk, simply because the discussion is about levels of industry, and not about working longer hours or making hobbies pay.
That they are paid to make something using the resources means that the resources of someone, somewhere, is covering the cost of their wage. If the productive value of website more than covers the cost of it's inception and maintenence, then someone, somewhere reaps a benifit. But the benifit they reap, be it by way of customers choosing their product or service over that of another provider or if the website generated previously non-existent subjective human desires for the advertised product or service, the discretionary spening thus gained is diverted from elsewhere in the economy.
posted by Jac | 9:50 pm
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