Economists always claim that we need populations to grow for economies to grow, which they seem to regard as a necessity. I’ve never understood why growth is necessary, when what we need is to distribute life’s necessities—food, water, shelter, etc—among people.

Anyway, take economic growth as a necessity for the sake of argument.

Economists also worry about losing jobs to other countries.

Well, if having more people doesn’t cause an economy to run out of jobs, doesn’t that mean we can create more jobs even if some work moves away?

If jobs aren’t zero-sum, what’s the problem with some going overseas? Don’t other countries’ growth mean we can collaborate with them and that they can buy our stuff?

Or if we do have to worry about running out of jobs, wouldn’t that cause problems with growing the population?

Am I missing something? Or are they?

One of the benefits of an Ivy League PhD in physics is the freedom to ask what might be obvious to others and not risk people thinking you’re dumb.

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