Commonplace Misperceptions about the way Economies work

The world is amply stocked, even without Nobel laureate economists joining them, with people who mistakenly believe that the chief problem that economies must solve is finding work for people. But what people want above all (at least from the economy) is not work per se, but consumption goods – a large and growing selection of ample consumption goods. Jobs are only a means to that end. And ample and growing supplies of consumption goods are impossible without creative destruction and efforts to produce, whenever possible, more efficiently. Labor-saving technologies and modes of production enhance wealth; without such things we’d still all be living, dirt poor, on farms.

As F.A. Hayek observed in The Fatal Conceit: “The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design.”