Can a Hole in the Ground be Productive?

Throughout U.S. history, there has been a recurring temptation to replace hard work and productivity with gimmicks or government schemes promising easy wealth, from Richard Schell’s 1874 plan to dig a transcontinental canal funded by printed money to Keynes’s 1936 theory that digging holes in the ground would boost employment and national output; such ideas have fueled nonproductive federal spending, hundreds of agencies existing solely to spend money, and even programs paying farmers not to plant, illustrating how reliance on artificial “solutions” over real work has contributed to economic trouble. #KeynesianCritique #FederalSpending #ProductivityVsGimmicks #EconomicHistory #WorkEthic