Invaluable

For all that people speak of value as if it were a birthright, there is no right to be useful or to be considered valuable. Value is a measure of preference, and preferences by their very nature, are not subject to considerations of objectivity. There is value someone in seeking out and finding those people who have a preference for them, but it is pernicious to consider one's own preference to be valued as reflecting some deeper reality.

The problem with Diversity, Equity and Inclusion in a social setting that values efficiency (and thus, keeping employment as low as possible) is that the best way for the work environment to be diverse, equitable and inclusive is for it to need people. The tech boom of the late 1990s and very early 2000s is an example of this; when companies are desperate for workers, they can't afford the selectivity that gives rise to variances in representation in the corporate space. True, everyone who wants a job having one won't necessarily fix disparities in executive ranks or in certain industries and subsectors, but it's better than attempting to make the ranks of the unemployed line up withe demographics of the nation. And to the degree that people earn skills that they can then use to keep themselves productive, a high overall level of employment helps with some of the structural problems in the labor force (even if it doesn't come close to solving all of them).

But in the present, value will continue to live in the eye of the person with a need to be fulfilled. And once their needs are fulfilled, they need not value anything beyond that.