Re:Economists are now admitting that they were wrong about g...
by DubiousPusher on Friday October 25, 2019 @04:13PM
(#21358792)
But when we attempt them we should discard the assumption that people and therefore labor behaves like a fluid. In scales of hundreds of years it does but in scales of decades it behaves like Legos or the ice stuck at the bottom of your glass. All kinds of motivations affect people's stickiness to a place, a lifestyle or a career. It's hard to know what will dislodges them or how far you can tip the glass before they all rush forward at the same time and smack you in the face.
Not attempting such things doesn't mean we avoid the risk of such wealth destruction; it just means we have nobody to a point a finger at when it happens. Politically this is easier because of how people think and the dynamics of our social discourse. See Appeal to Nature Fallacy (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_nature). This is especially true the more cynical and ideological we become as we're more likely to pounce on failures of action, but excuse failures of inaction as inevitable natural events or limitations.