Nobody should have to sit waiting for permission to work in the first place. A free human being - an equal - should be able to use their share of our resources to be economically active without needing to pay anyone for the privilege or letting a self-entitled "employer" leech money off of their work. The overprivileged have a vested interest in getting as few servants doing as much work as possible to maximise what they can scrounge for themselves. This power (their iron grip on our land and resources) should be removed to enable everyone to do business or work together without having to submit to anyone out of desperation.
Yes, everyone should be entitled to a fair share, but how do you measure that? How do you compare the value of low skill but physically intensive menial labour with high skill, yet non-physically taxing medical job? What about abstract maths? Philosophy? Art? Innovation and investment (yes that is actually a valuable skill, despite how much people hate fatcats)?
Yes, the rich elite having huge power and influence is a terrible thing, but it is not a trivial problem to solve. Let them have free reign, and you end up like the states; consolidating power and wealth in small oligarchies. But what? Take their wealth out of hand, and you lose the ability to motivate people towards a personal reward (why would I work my arse off, if the government will just reposess everything later?).
These are obvious cases, but there are thousands more.
The problem is, economies aren't simple. You can't just wave a magic wand and make it better.
Ninja'd; Kaijyuu hits on some of these points himself.
Thanks for the clarification but I am still not completely clear on the whole thing. My main question from your post is regarding this:
it is a vital necessity if you want any sort of growth in the absence of efficiency improvements
Growth in an economic sense usually means more stuff being produced and consumed (correct me if I am wrong). Why do we need this? We have grown to the point where we are now bigger than we need to be. Is there a pressing reason we can't just stop growing, at least for a while?
Oh and wrt what economists I'm listening to: the ones on TV, but don't worry I know they are mostly idiots. Still there is a general public perception of economics which is based on what the media tells them. I don't think economics are as complex as they are made out to be. Sure economies are extremely complex, but in the sense that brownian motion or music is complex: the underlying principles are fairly straightforward. Having said that, I am supremely confused about the aspects mentioned in this thread so perhaps it really is bigger than I thought.
Endless growth isn't desirable, in theory, because of the whole finite resources thing. However, in practice, it's a little different; short term (controlled; again, excessive is BAD) growth has it's advantages. One example; if an economy is static, basically the only way you can advance is by retirement or death of those above you. That means almost no social mobility. That's fine if you're on the top, but not so good if you're on the bottom and have dreams beyond shovelling shit.
Furthermore, it depends on population; economic growth is intrinsically linked to population growth. If there's population growth but no economic growth; there will be an impoverished class growing at the same rate. As our population has pretty well always been expanding (thanks SCIENCE!), our economy has needed to as well. When population starts to level off, we should see a cooling of passion for economic growth
Also, yeah, popular media is generally a terrible way to get a clear picture of any issue. Sadly though, there isn't any better way other then reading up on every subject personally.
EDIT: Oh and look up fractals. Extreme complexity can come from VERY simple rules. EDIT EDIT: Also, yes, there are simple rules for music, but I would never dream of being able to understand it all. Brownian motion, though, is fairly straightforward. Not necessarily trivial, but comprehensible.