Tom Woods on creative destruction and human progress

I think everybody has to acknowledge, if we're being realistic about this, that any kind of free economy is going to have that outcome [winners and losers] because there will always be new developments.  There will be changes in peoples' tastes, preferences, resource availability, all kinds of things that change on a dime.  As Mises said, "We all, on some level, recognize that in order to get to the standard of living that we had, some things had to go by the wayside because they were taking up resources that were better used for other things."  But when we are involved with the thing that has to go by the wayside, we consider it the greatest injustice in mankind's history.  

But we all know on some level that if we don't do that, then we would be, let's see, we would be sitting in a society overflowing with rotting food because we would be producing so much, we couldn't consume it all, we'd still have the sanitary problem of horse fecal material all over the streets because we would be transported that way.  There are big changes that come in any kind of free economy, whether or not you have free trade.  And the thing is, in general, that works out for everybody.  But it can mean short-term displacement for some people.  You can try to mitigate that through social welfare and voluntary contributions and various services you can provide, but you would never want to just simply stop it because that's the way progress occurs.  That's the way progress that we all want occurs.

~ Tom Woods, "Is China Guilty As Charged?," 38:00 mark, The Tom Woods Show, April 18, 2025