The Last Ditch by Tom Paine

Well of course.

I have nothing to add to Tim's wisdom and commend the linked post to you.

Economics … has nothing at all to say about whether more or less inequality is a good thing to be striving for. Nada on whether greater physical wealth is better or worse than greater spiritual wealth, about whether we really ought to all make things with our hands or leave it all to machines or Chinee. Entirely sweet f*** all to say about what is the desirable society.

Quite. Asserting the primacy of politics over economics (a la Angela Merkel) is like deciding to fly to France by jumping off the white cliffs of Dover and flapping your arms. Your legitimate objective of travel to France doesn't entitle you to defy gravity.

Watching Ms Merkel and her European cohorts attempting to defy economic gravity is sadly not quite such an amusing image.