Dr. Martin Hash Podcast

Though there is one law of economics above all others, few people seem to know it, and fewer still ever mention it in public: production must equal consumption. Any economy that violates this rule can continue a while longer by borrowing from other nations, or plundering the accumulated wealth of others, but eventually even that runs out. Throughout history, you ate the turnips you laboriously grew yourself or you starved to death; even with trade, a farmer's options were limited by how many turnips the family could grow. The dividing line into modern times is the Adam Smith concept of increased productivity through specialization, which increased productivity 10-fold, 100-fold, so much that people now take it for granted, and have forgot the Productivity Rule.

As the generations of scarcity died off, ambitious politicians exploited young people's naivety about work by postulating economic schemes that encourage consumption without commensurate production. They promise that people no longer have to work, and promote the idea that everyone should only have to do what makes them happiest, coddled by a benevolent society. It's an alluring promise, one that anyone would take, especially if they've also been convinced that it's owed to them due to birth, reparations, or retirement. This is natural, and society must consciously pushback, but it's difficult when impressionable children are raised to aspire to only doing things that are meaningful rather than productive.