The way we have defined it in an open capitalistic market is that if someone is willing to pay you money, you are providing value!
(Societal value is obviously slightly different, since people will pay for things like hitmen, who are obviously providing value to one party but taking away a near infinite amount of value from another.)
And yes it is sort of a circular definition.
> Who said anything about corporations? Hiring people to do work has been a basic part of the human experience for thousands of years. Unless you can run your entire business on your own you're going to need help, and so you give someone else money to do what you can't.
So what we need is a certain % of people who are willing to be entrepreneurs, thereby keeping others employed.
Thus one has to ask:
• Are entrepreneurs being provided with enough incentive and possibilities to open their businesses?
• Has something changed from a societal perspective that has decreased the percentage of people who have an entrepreneurial mindset?
Obviously the first the government (and private industry) can help solve, but the second, well, that is a bit harder of a problem!
I'll accept increasing amounts of automation and efficiency as a reason for the reduced number of open positions but the idea that this generation is somehow more lazy than any other is ludicrous.
And finally the idea of "contributing to society" is so nebulous I don't know where to begin. Is someone who makes a really good latte contributing to society? Is an investment banker contributing? Kim Kardashian? Zynga?