Reply #45: of course you do

[Two Americas]

Particularly when it comes to agriculture, your food is heavily subsidized in many ways and developed through the contributions of tens of thousands of people throughout history, none of whom were adequately compensated at all, let alone by you.

The most essential things upon which we are most dependent are the most poorly compensated. Without human beings working for the love of working, rather than in your paradigm of enforced labor, and without their main motivation being the well-being of others, your imaginary world, a world of selfishness - of two dogs fighting for one bone - where all must submit or starve, would not be possible. Therefore your life is the parasitical one, and the people focusing on something greater than what you can see and whom you are suggesting are the parasites, are actually subsidizing you.

The rest of us could survive without your contributions. I am not so sure we can without the contributions of the OP and others like her.

Do people exist for the sake of the economy, or does the economy exist for the sake of people? Is society merely an aggregate of activity driven by selfish individualism, or are all of our notions of individualism completely dependent upon centuries of cooperative community building? These are but two of the foundational and essential questions that you are not only failing to answer adequately, but are not even asking.