This video is apropo the UUWorld article about dignity and “rankism”. It describes how we can view our jobs as merely a job, a career, or a calling, and how house cleaners can invest meaning in a job many look down on.
People who clean toilets prove a tangible benefit for mankind. There are certainly some professions, like investment banking, where the benefits are more dubious.
I suppose I’m being cheeky, and missing the point by suggesting that investment banking has les value. The UUWorld article suggests we respect every person’s work equally. That to me may go tar far in preventing an assessment of “right livelihood.” We should retain the right to critique work that may be anti-social, but we should respect people who work hard at jobs that contribute to society with a lot less regard to how much those jobs pay.
And seriously, as far as investment banking goes, a certain amount of financial servies are essential to an economy, but the developments since the Reagan era created an environment where financial engineering was compensated far more than its actual worth, leading to the current debacle.