> Womeone is paying me to do a thing. Therefore, what I'm doing must, at least on average and over the long term, be so valuable to some number of people that it's worth continuing those payments.
I feel that is not a logical conclusion. What if someone paid a hitman to kill their boss because they got into a fight with them and they aren't emotionally stable enough to have a discussion?
Yes, an extreme example, but consider this: not every increase in perceived value is necessarily good.
An extreme example indeed, and a heinous one, which is probably why contact killings are so rare and so expensive. My key operating words of "on average" and "over the long term" are in full effect here.
I direct interested readers to David Friedman's _The Machinery of Freedom_ for some worked examples of how capitalism might minimize such actions from taking place.
I feel that is not a logical conclusion. What if someone paid a hitman to kill their boss because they got into a fight with them and they aren't emotionally stable enough to have a discussion?
Yes, an extreme example, but consider this: not every increase in perceived value is necessarily good.