What is the purpose of an economy anyway?

What is the purpose of an economy anyway?

I heard a reporter on a recent Economist podcast say that, in light of the growing UK economy, creating jobs is a good thing.

It seems to me that creating jobs is not only a good thing, creating jobs is the thing. What other purpose is there for an economy?

Here’s what I mean. An ‘economy’ is kind of a meta-thing that emerges whenever two or more people get together and decide that working together to meet everybody’s needs is more efficient than everyone trying to each meet 100% of their own needs (like, say, some kind of off-the-grid survivalist). Economies emerge in all kinds of places: prison economies, school-yard economies, national economies, global economies.