Re:Would 1950s Living Standards Save Us?
by mdp2021 on Friday June 17, 2022 @03:03PM
(#31782813)
> I don't think people are going to willingly return to 1950s levels of air travel affordability or food availability
On the contrary, I would say it's most reasonable. Where I am writing from, I could bet that already the brighter half of the population, not just a minority, would call eating strawberries in winter an aberration - let us say, luxury, not a natural right. Similarly (about travel), there where there are secondary costs such as externalities, one expects them to be embedded in the price. If, in air travel, you see tickets sold at the price of a meal, it means that the offer of the service is very liberal, instead of competitive.
But since these drafty ideas should reveal complexities immediately thereafter - vital importance of export, dynamics of inflation, of markets etc. -, what should emerge is that a simplistic consideration of the matter is not productive. Even when "people" would gladly call for more reasonable systems: such solutions are not trivially defined.
On the contrary, I would say it's most reasonable. Where I am writing from, I could bet that already the brighter half of the population, not just a minority, would call eating strawberries in winter an aberration - let us say, luxury, not a natural right. Similarly (about travel), there where there are secondary costs such as externalities, one expects them to be embedded in the price. If, in air travel, you see tickets sold at the price of a meal, it means that the offer of the service is very liberal, instead of competitive.
But since these drafty ideas should reveal complexities immediately thereafter - vital importance of export, dynamics of inflation, of markets etc. -, what should emerge is that a simplistic consideration of the matter is not productive. Even when "people" would gladly call for more reasonable systems: such solutions are not trivially defined.