shoot for the gutter, land in the sewer

“Just eat less, peasant”

One of the strongest illusory tools of orthodoxy is implying that everyone can do something if someone can do it.

For many people, it is possible to use thrift to get ahead of everyone else. There needs to be slack, partly to offer an incentive and partly because zero slack would mean every last actor was optimally squeezed, with no more squeezing to be done without a regression of people’s rights or a systematic breakdown.

But if everyone was thrifty, the economy would have precious little to run on.

For reference, see headlines that scream “Generation [Scapegoat] Is Killing The _____ Industry”.