Utopia
I have it on good advice that one of Peter Drucker’s many quotes includes this;
‘There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at all.’
I can’t agree. If we took this advice literally at least half the Australian working population would be out a job by tomorrow.
As technology rolls on and technological unemployment accelerates we had all better get used to doing efficiently that which should not be done at all.
offshore westerly 
‘Shouldn’t be done’ implies to me work that has a negative impact on the productivity, efficiency, and well-being of those people doing things that should be done. All of us in the productivity-neutral make-work sectors have nothing to fear, and I can agree wholeheartedly with the quote.
All other inputs being of equal cost, we would still have the world’s most expensive exports due to the fact that all those productivity-neutral activities must be paid for!
But as technology rolls on and technological unemployment accelerates, every other country will be in the same boat, nicht wahr? Much better to have ambitious and efficient surplus labour employed at $100k a year doing something useless than have them actively making mischief as part of the manageriat. The country that best learns to transform their productivity-negative workforce into a productivity-neutral one will have a tremendous competitive advantage.
I agree. We should employee everyone as academics.
I, for one, welcome my new colleagues employed under the Maxwell scheme 🙂