Number of socially useless jobs

[maxhess]

Has a percentage of socially useless jobs (only required under capitalism) in the UK or elsewhere ever been calculated? I’m guessing it’s around 30-40%.

[alanjjohnstone]

Didn’t Robbo do some estimates on this?

Off the top of my head I would judge it to be much higher, Max…at least 60%

[PartisanZ]

I think we would have to get there first. I would go for the lower guestimate. A number of functions in respect of statistic gathering, might still come in handy for calculation of resources needed after the initial overproduction, as we settle down into a steady state system.

[Anonymous]

I think that it is more than 75%

[alanjjohnstone]

“…A number of functions in respect of statistic gathering, might still come in handy for calculation of resources needed…”

True

I often cite insurance actuaries as an example of this, Matt, forgetting about their financial calculations but thinking about their risk assessments.

Perhaps looking at job-numbers we also overlooking the number of jobs that will be superfluous with AI, robotics and automation.

But we might be in a situation where old technologies are preferred to new technology when we have more satisfying and rewarding work to do, also perhaps for the social interaction of the work-place. Is it a coincidence we use the word “work-mates”?

[Author]

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