The Machine Is Not Broken

When a system produces the same result for two hundred years, the result is not a malfunction. It is the specification.

This is obvious about anything mechanical. If a press stamps a part slightly out of tolerance every single time, no engineer says the press is broken. They say the press is doing what it was built to do, and the drawing is wrong. Nobody proposes to fix it by motivating the press.

We do not apply this to economies, and I think the refusal is deliberate, because the alternative is expensive.

Consider what gets said whenever the outputs are counted. Inequality is a challenge to be addressed. Environmental damage is an externality to be priced. Loneliness is an emerging public health concern. Every one of those framings carries the same buried assumption: that the system intends something else and is falling short, and that the gap is a matter of execution.