In his book The Choice, economist Russ Roberts asks how voters would feel about a machine that could convert wheat into automobiles.
a. Do you think that voters would complain that this machine should be banned, since it would destroy jobs in the auto industry?
b. Would this machine, in fact, destroy jobs in the auto industry? If so, would roughly the same number of jobs eventually be created in other industries?
c. Here is Roberts’s punch line: If voters were told that the wonder machine was in fact just a cargo ship that exported wheat and imported autos from a foreign country, how would voters’ attitudes toward this machine change?