Suppose you ate 100 bananas this year. Suppose you were told that next year you are only allowed 90 bananas, and what’s more you will never have 100 bananas a year again. Even worse, after next year you will never have 90 bananas again. And the same is true of everything else you enjoy.
Most people hope, at a minimum, that next year will be no worse than this year. They do not like knowing, for certain, that every year will be worse than the one before. Forever. But that’s what happens when productivity and population inexorably decline.
In fact, in this situation the only way to make things better, for anyone, is at someone else’s expense. There is no such thing as a win-win outcome. That makes for a very unpleasant society and it’s easy to see why leaders want to avoid this.
Less productive means less things for you.
Suppose you ate 100 bananas this year. Suppose you were told that next year you are only allowed 90 bananas, and what’s more you will never have 100 bananas a year again. Even worse, after next year you will never have 90 bananas again. And the same is true of everything else you enjoy.
Most people hope, at a minimum, that next year will be no worse than this year. They do not like knowing, for certain, that every year will be worse than the one before. Forever. But that’s what happens when productivity and population inexorably decline.
In fact, in this situation the only way to make things better, for anyone, is at someone else’s expense. There is no such thing as a win-win outcome. That makes for a very unpleasant society and it’s easy to see why leaders want to avoid this.