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Where did you get that "leisure" equates to "consumption"? Being productive certainly doesn't imply not consuming. I don't think I'm disagreeing with you saying that leisure time can be productive, but I think the issue of "consumption" is irrelevant here.

There is a sense in which being "productive" implies creating value, i.e., producing more value than you consume. If you restrict yourself to the realm of money, then being productive generally involves profit (e.g., producing something that gives net increase in monetary value over consumption costs). But if some person with leisure values things that other people generally don't want to pay money for (e.g., writing poetry), their leisure time can be productive (producing poetry) while they're purely an economic consumer (making no money, but spending money to live).



Did you read the comment I'm replying to? That comment specifically associated leisure with consumption:

> There's a reason that retiring early is literally bad for your brain [0] - healthy adults are supposed to be engaged in productive activity. Whether productive activity means punching a clock, volunteering at a $nonprofit or striking out on your own, the point is that our minds and bodies need to be actively living, not just passively consuming


Ah, I see. I don't think the guy was equating leisure with consumption at all. You could say he was equating leisure with "just passively consuming", which is where his mistake is (along with his unrelated error of thinking Keynes implicitly thought leisure would automatically bring happiness).

I would also agree that a person having some leisure that is "just passively consuming" is fine, maybe even good. But I'm pretty sure it's bad if _all_ of a person's leisure is "just passively consuming", at least if they have a decent amount of leisure (if you're working 80 hour weeks then it's probably not bad at all to have your leisure time all be passive consumption).




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