Years ago, a rare individual, an “economics historian”, made an astounding discovery unlike any other known principle in economics. He refused to believe it, and spent the next 20 years trying to prove it wrong, but he was unable to.
The discovery was of a 100% correlation in economics, that applied throughout human history, location indifferent.
When he finally published his findings, his book was mostly references and footnotes, and so arcane in character that only serious economists could wade through it. Worth the effort, because he figured it would upend both economics and history.
Simply put, he had discovered a 100% correlation between mining and economic prosperity in a nation, kingdom, empire, any other form of government, or economic block.
That is, as a nation (etc.) mines, it prospers. The more it mines, the more it prospers. If it mines less, its economy is in decline, and when it discontinues mining *for any reason*, the nation nears collapse or collapses.
Please post the name of this “Economics historian” and where his or her or its writings can be found.
That fits in w/ what a lot of folks swear by, this notion that human well-being is limited by available natural resources. I personally don't buy it but if it were true then we'd be fine, given the fact that mining tech has far out-paced population growth --we can see how for centuries the prices mined commodities has been falling.