Among the oddments that sometimes appear in opinion polls are questions like, “Would you accept a lower standard of living in exchange for” … whatever policy is currently on offer. That policy might range from a climate-change shutdown of all carbon-based energy production, to reduced levels of immigration and foreign trade.
In principle, I approve this recognition of policy trade-offs, and every acknowledgement that, in the red-pilled world beyond political phantasy, “you can’t have your diamond-studded hand-sculptured fondant wedding cake, and eat it, too”. Or in the more modest, Yorkshire form of this important cliché: “You can’t have the penny and the bun”.
Any concession towards what I remember as reality is welcome at the present day, to me. As a non-economist, however, I regret that the trade-offs are only expressed in money. They apply also, and frequently instead, to things the modern world doesn’t count, because they are intangibles.
David Warren, “On juvenile delinquency”, Essays in Idleness, 2020-05-22.
June 24, 2025
QotD: Trade-offs
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