Right, I would define something like getting an education to be work, because it’s done with the intention of bettering one’s self to better society; while going around and breaking all the windows in town just to be paid to fix them again is not work, even if some individual ends up getting rich in the process. It’s a net loss for the rest of us.

I guess from a physics pov it all depends how you define the boundary of the system, and I draw it at a society level.