Correct in one sense, but assumes we know in advance what will be waste and what won't be. Central planning has shown itself to be far less effective, both in overall quality of life and in meeting specific demands, than more wasteful competitive economies. So although its easy to point to retrospectively wasteful activities, life without them would be objectively worse.
Tangentially, when covid was in early days and people were beginning to develop vaccines, I saw someone comment asking who was going to coordinate the many disparate development efforts to make sure resources were being effectively used. I can't think of a more starkly absurd idea - it's only by allowing free activity, incentivized by some external, real forcing function, that we can expect to see consistent success. Any central definition and sanction of what should and shouldn't be done instantly distorts incentives towards pleading some central arbiter, and fails.
So all the scuzzy businesses and pursuits that the GP thinks are wasteful, are part of the rich tapestry that overall feeds us and keeps lifting us up. The only way we'd should be signaling they are not helpful is by not using them (and just for greater certainty I'm not talking about tolerating things that are exploitive, harmful, etc, just "wastful")
Correct in one sense, but assumes we know in advance what will be waste and what won't be. Central planning has shown itself to be far less effective, both in overall quality of life and in meeting specific demands, than more wasteful competitive economies. So although its easy to point to retrospectively wasteful activities, life without them would be objectively worse.
Tangentially, when covid was in early days and people were beginning to develop vaccines, I saw someone comment asking who was going to coordinate the many disparate development efforts to make sure resources were being effectively used. I can't think of a more starkly absurd idea - it's only by allowing free activity, incentivized by some external, real forcing function, that we can expect to see consistent success. Any central definition and sanction of what should and shouldn't be done instantly distorts incentives towards pleading some central arbiter, and fails.
So all the scuzzy businesses and pursuits that the GP thinks are wasteful, are part of the rich tapestry that overall feeds us and keeps lifting us up. The only way we'd should be signaling they are not helpful is by not using them (and just for greater certainty I'm not talking about tolerating things that are exploitive, harmful, etc, just "wastful")