1) I've been through layoffs that disproportionately hit "paper-pushers"
2) Many of the "paper-pusher" jobs are extremely useful to society (e.g., actuaries), while the "manual" jobs may not be (e.g., why do we really need dock workers? Can't technology eventually replace them all in the future?)
Now economic usefulness is definitely not linked with personal satisfaction / some altruistic notion of "societal value".
At the end of the day, economic usefulness seems to always win out, because it takes money to do most anything, and generally money goes to the places with the highest potential economic ROI.
Insurance companies hire actuaries to help them manage their risk, while record labels aren't signing a bunch of unknown bands to ensure we have enough jazz musicians around.
1) I've been through layoffs that disproportionately hit "paper-pushers"
2) Many of the "paper-pusher" jobs are extremely useful to society (e.g., actuaries), while the "manual" jobs may not be (e.g., why do we really need dock workers? Can't technology eventually replace them all in the future?)
Now economic usefulness is definitely not linked with personal satisfaction / some altruistic notion of "societal value".
At the end of the day, economic usefulness seems to always win out, because it takes money to do most anything, and generally money goes to the places with the highest potential economic ROI.
Insurance companies hire actuaries to help them manage their risk, while record labels aren't signing a bunch of unknown bands to ensure we have enough jazz musicians around.