What is work?

What is work?

Work is mental and physical effort that produces something of value ... to myself or to others.

While work is not the only way something of value is produced ... apples grow on trees, fish spawn in the sea ... work is the only thing that produces what we call wealth. Apples must be picked, fish must be caught. Improvements in picking and catching must be invented. This mental and physical effort is what produces real wealth.

False wealth resides in the relative exchange value of the components of real wealth, a value represented by the "paper" instruments ... money ... of finance. If there were no items of real wealth then there would certainly be no relative exchange value between those items, no false wealth, and money would be worthless.

So if we keep printing money without also increasing our production of items of real wealth ... well, you can see the outcome.

And if work is what produces real wealth ... and we have large numbers of unemployed, unproductive workers ... well, you can see the outcome even more clearly now.

In fact, there is only one way to produce the real wealth that gives money its value, and that is to put people back to work producing items of value.

And when there aren't any more apples to pick or fish to catch, then you put people to work building the infrastructure that reduces the time and effort it takes to get the apples and fish to market ... the railroads, highways, high-speed communication ... because we know that the speed of transactions—a product of work—is a component of real wealth.

Note: Thoughts after reading Paul Krugman's column, "Fears and Failure," in today's New York Times.