Re: Hey, who needs jobs?
There's a story that Milton Friedman was touring a big government project somewhere in China or Asia. There were thousands of workers building a canal with shovels. Friedman wondered why they weren't using large earth-movers or mechanical equipment, and a government official explained that using shovels created more jobs.
Friedman's response was: "Then why aren't they using spoons instead of shovels?"
Seriously, is the peak of human endeavor a medieval subsistence economy? This guy has a much different idea of "thriving" than I do.