These sort of thought experiments come from the same place where they say we should tax the unemployed for oxygen inhaled & subsidize oxygen for the employer. i find uchicago-style social-engineering-disguised-as-economics alternately fascinating & repulsive, depending on which end of the table I am sitting at.
The idea being that if joblessness has a social cost, we make the jobless pay that cost by taxing their breathing. Whereas if work, any work, is of social benefit, than we subsidize breathing by employers on a per-job basis.
The thought experiment is: does working at a job have an intrinsic social value, or unemployment an intrinsic social cost, aside from the wages or lack thereof?
