Comment by opwieurposiu
3 days ago
Economists call this sort of labor "goon work". This include PR specialists, lawyers, police, private security, alarm system salesmen, etc.
Goon work produces nothing, so it is a net drag on the economy. The % of goon jobs increases as wealth inequality increases.
Some amount of goon work may be required due to bad actors stealing stuff, hard to tell what the optimal number is.
Rent seeking is a net drag on the economy as well and goons enable rent seeking.
As a warning to all people seeking to verify the claim that economists call this "goon work"... do not just google "Goon work". At the very least, don't do it at work or on a work device.
Trust me.
hard lesson to learn
I believe the proper term is "guard labor".
You are right, "guard labor" is what is traditionally called. I think I got "Goon" in my head from reading that "Bullshit Jobs" book.
Couldn't the same be said for something like medical professions or cyber security? The point isn't to produce something, it's to protect something from being negatively impacted. Or to respond in some way to assess the impact and remediate.
Defending against and responding to harm almost never produces anything but is almost always necessary to have.
However, if your comment was more aimed at the consultant being an inherently misaligned figure with a larger capacity to do harm than good, I don't completely disagree.
Police produce nothing? What are you talking about? Lawuers produce nothin? How the hell would either of those be considered goon work? This is nonsense
What do they produce?
I think some law work is non-goon: contract law, family law, human rights law, to name a few
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