> Many jobs do not provide (marginal utility > income) to society, and many even produce negative marginal utility.
What are some examples of this? Why are people paying those workers?
What are some examples of this? Why are people paying those workers?
In short, in modern, mainstream economic theory the ideas that explain this are what's called Market Failures. In 2001, the Nobel Prize in economics went to people who studied information asymmetries, which lead to market failures.
A concrete and classic example is the Tragedy of the Commons.
My earlier example of the financial sector, which in 2008 showed everyone how private gains created public losses in the form of subsidies, recession, inflation, bail-outs, moral hazard, public-sector risk, was created despite (and many argue in part, because) of government-oversight.
Another, more benign example, is one I was reminded of while on vacation in France. A toilet bloc was guarded by an unhappy attendant who took 1 euro per use. It would be better to install a 100euro toll gate and give her the remaining profit to buy a computer to play video games (or art supplies, whatever she wants to do), in the hours between cleanings. Everyone wins. This is what's called pareto-efficient. Someone is made better off and no one is made worse off (tourists don't need to encounter an unhappy attendant, either).
However, to address your general sentiment: First let's establish the premise that the most important thing to ones survival and welfare in the world today is money.
Without that--and therefore by separating the relationship between survival, social status, welfare and money--it could be argued that we would take a step in the direction of fixing incentive alignment.
People might know part of this work better by the paper title / catchphrase "market for lemons" [1]. This inspired "lemon laws" in several countries.
Because in any large organisation they are indistinguishable from the productive ones. Sometimes even in your own team there might be someone that appears very productive but creates long term maintenance costs.
Lots more jobs (medical billers) exist mostly in opposition of other people (insurance adjusters).
It really isn't. AI might not be able to take over 100% of our jobs anytime soon, but if even half of the things we spend time on, things like understanding requirements. If an AI system can coax users/managers to provide better requirements, maybe even create tests for those requirements, then every programmer could be twice as productive. That means half as many of us are needed.