I’m not sure I understand how this relates to your original question. Everyone’s job exists at some level because they have a comparative advantage doing it, and specializing in it, compared to other people doing it for themselves. Even doctors have doctors and lawyers have lawyers.
I’m a consultant with a background in physics and materials science. Companies set themselves goals: growth, emissions reduction, and improving sustainability are the ones I focus on most. They work with my employer so a neutral third party can explain to them the landscape of technological options, legal constraints, market and policy trends, and range of business models and plans available to achieve those goals. Often the relevant entities are well outside the company’s normal set of customers, suppliers, and competitors. Also, we can put them in touch with the right people once they choose how to proceed, and over time we put in the work forming and maintaining those connections so we’re well-placed to do this more efficiently than they can do themselves.
My job also includes telling people when they’re asking the wrong questions, and helping educate them and their company. In that capacity I provide an outside view, and try to find and point out what are to them the unknown unknowns. “Humans are not automatically strategic” is a rough approximation of why my job exists.
I’m not sure I understand how this relates to your original question. Everyone’s job exists at some level because they have a comparative advantage doing it, and specializing in it, compared to other people doing it for themselves. Even doctors have doctors and lawyers have lawyers.
Programmers are part of the economy and this was an explanation of some things programmers do, so by transitivity it is a partial explanation of what the economy does?
My original question was not “why do economic transactions exist, rather than everyone just doing what they personally need?”. It was “what does the economy do?”, i.e. which activities are executed within the economy?
Then in that case, the focus on job activities is way too narrow. The answer to “which activities are executed within the economy?” is roughly “all of them, except those things which literally can’t be bought and sold, even on the black market.” And that is a very small and shrinking set. Every choice to do something for myself is also a choice not to hire someone else to do it, there’s no neutral opt-out decision, even if measures like GDP don’t accurately capture household production. Technically with modern medical technology I could even use money to outsource my breathing, eating, blood circulation, and blood filtration. Economics is a totalizing approach to explaining how we assign and distribute scarce resources across every choice we make.
So in that sense I’d say that “what the economy does” is provide options and incentivize people to take those options, in full generality.
The answer to “which activities are executed within the economy?” is roughly “all of them, except those things which literally can’t be bought and sold, even on the black market.”
Yes but I would like to have a conprehensive list of all activities people engage in. Rather than just abstracting it into “all of them”.
Sorry if that came off rude, it just seemed like a kind of question I would never expect anyone to ask. It’s not like there’s one ready-made somewhere, and it’s not like anyone could type one out. No matter how many examples anyone gives you, you’ll still be missing almost all of them and need the abstractions anyway. And if you have internet access and have lived a reasonable number of years as a human, you already have a sufficient basis to know that, and also to build on without such a list.
I’m not sure I understand how this relates to your original question. Everyone’s job exists at some level because they have a comparative advantage doing it, and specializing in it, compared to other people doing it for themselves. Even doctors have doctors and lawyers have lawyers.
I’m a consultant with a background in physics and materials science. Companies set themselves goals: growth, emissions reduction, and improving sustainability are the ones I focus on most. They work with my employer so a neutral third party can explain to them the landscape of technological options, legal constraints, market and policy trends, and range of business models and plans available to achieve those goals. Often the relevant entities are well outside the company’s normal set of customers, suppliers, and competitors. Also, we can put them in touch with the right people once they choose how to proceed, and over time we put in the work forming and maintaining those connections so we’re well-placed to do this more efficiently than they can do themselves.
My job also includes telling people when they’re asking the wrong questions, and helping educate them and their company. In that capacity I provide an outside view, and try to find and point out what are to them the unknown unknowns. “Humans are not automatically strategic” is a rough approximation of why my job exists.
Programmers are part of the economy and this was an explanation of some things programmers do, so by transitivity it is a partial explanation of what the economy does?
My original question was not “why do economic transactions exist, rather than everyone just doing what they personally need?”. It was “what does the economy do?”, i.e. which activities are executed within the economy?
Then in that case, the focus on job activities is way too narrow. The answer to “which activities are executed within the economy?” is roughly “all of them, except those things which literally can’t be bought and sold, even on the black market.” And that is a very small and shrinking set. Every choice to do something for myself is also a choice not to hire someone else to do it, there’s no neutral opt-out decision, even if measures like GDP don’t accurately capture household production. Technically with modern medical technology I could even use money to outsource my breathing, eating, blood circulation, and blood filtration. Economics is a totalizing approach to explaining how we assign and distribute scarce resources across every choice we make.
So in that sense I’d say that “what the economy does” is provide options and incentivize people to take those options, in full generality.
Yes but I would like to have a conprehensive list of all activities people engage in. Rather than just abstracting it into “all of them”.
I’m starting to think I’m talking to an AI and not a human.
Why?
Sorry if that came off rude, it just seemed like a kind of question I would never expect anyone to ask. It’s not like there’s one ready-made somewhere, and it’s not like anyone could type one out. No matter how many examples anyone gives you, you’ll still be missing almost all of them and need the abstractions anyway. And if you have internet access and have lived a reasonable number of years as a human, you already have a sufficient basis to know that, and also to build on without such a list.
Wait, wouldn’t such a list be extremely long?
In theory yes, but I don’t expect anyone to be able to create a full list, so I expect to only end up with a few items on it.