> It's a general problem with economic calculations - they do not take into
> account at all the ultimate benefits people want to receive from the economic
> system, such as free time, knowledge of the world, freedom, and happiness.
This is a common misunderstanding of economics, which does exactly, precisely, what you claim it doesn't. Many people, even otherwise educated people, think that economics is only about industrial production and employment and finance and such. To disabuse you of this error, I strongly recommend you read everything on David Friedman's site: <http://www.best.com/%7Eddfr/>.
Economics is nothing more than the study of the consequences of rational agents acting to achieve goals, whether those goals are money, happiness, free time, or anything else. (Economics can be considered a subset of Game Theory in that regard).
-- Lee Daniel Crocker <lee@piclab.com> <http://www.piclab.com/lcrocker.html> "All inventions or works of authorship original to me, herein and past, are placed irrevocably in the public domain, and may be used or modified for any purpose, without permission, attribution, or notification."--LDC