The Elasticity of Outrage
Why the politics of migration resembles a market that refuses to clear
Public debate in the West has a habit of borrowing the language of economics without fully committing to its discipline. Nowhere is this more evident than in discussions about migration, social activism, and crime—topics treated less like policy questions and more like volatile commodities.
If one insists on viewing the matter through an economic lens, however, an odd model emerges.
Zero-Cost Production
In the more alarmist narratives, two groups are said to proliferate effortlessly: undocumented migrants and ideological activists. The claim—usually implied rather than stated—is that their “marginal cost of production” is effectively zero.
They arrive, or they mobilise, without friction. No barriers, no limits, no apparent trade-offs.
This, of course, is not how real systems work. Migration involves costs—legal, physical, social. Activism, too, requires time, coordination, and opportunity. But in political storytelling, complexity is expensive. Simplicity is free.
So the myth persists: infinite supply.
Preference and Substitution
Economics, though, introduces an inconvenient complication: preferences.
Societies are not neutral markets. They exhibit biases—towards familiarity, stability, and perceived cohesion. When faced with choices, voters often display a preference for insiders over outsiders, even when the underlying data is ambiguous.
In economic terms, this resembles elasticity of substitution:
- “Domestic” behaviour (even undesirable behaviour) is often treated as more tolerable
- “External” inputs (even neutral ones) are treated as more disruptive
It is not always rational. But markets rarely are when identity is involved.
Policy as Price Signal
Governments, responding to these preferences, send signals—sometimes subtle, sometimes theatrical.
Announcements of large-scale removals, stricter enforcement, or tightened entry conditions function less as precise instruments and more as price signals to the electorate: reassurance that the system is under control.
Whether such measures are as sweeping as they sound is another matter. Policy, like advertising, is often about perception.
The Targeting Problem
This is where the analogy begins to strain.
Unlike commodities, people are not uniform units. Risk, behaviour, and intent vary enormously. Any system that attempts to “price” or “filter” individuals faces a fundamental challenge: how to distinguish accurately without overreach.
Technological optimism offers one answer. Data systems and predictive tools promise more targeted interventions—less blunt than past approaches, more focused on actual risk rather than broad categories.
In theory, this shifts policy from blanket measures to selective calibration.
In practice, the distinction is harder to maintain. Large systems tend to drift toward simplification, especially under political pressure.
The Expanding Definition of Risk
Another economic principle quietly enters the picture: scope creep.
When a system is built to identify “threats,” the definition of what constitutes a threat rarely stays fixed. Categories expand. Edge cases multiply. Signals become noisier.
What begins as a narrowly defined intervention can, over time, feel broader—less like a scalpel, more like a net.
This is not unique to migration policy. It is a feature of most large-scale regulatory systems.
Activism and Counter-Signals
Meanwhile, activism evolves in response.
Groups that feel targeted or mischaracterised tend to adapt, sometimes in unexpected ways. Positions shift. Coalitions realign. Even long-held assumptions—about the role of the state, or the balance between security and liberty—can change under pressure.
In economic terms, this is simply feedback.
The system acts. The system reacts. Neither remains static.
A Market That Won’t Settle
The result is not equilibrium, but oscillation.
- Policies tighten, then loosen
- Narratives escalate, then fragment
- Perceptions drift further from measurable realities
The “market” for these ideas does not clear because it is not really a market at all. It is a contest of narratives, incentives, and fears—only loosely tethered to data.
Final Thought
Treating migration, crime, and activism as if they were interchangeable economic goods can be illuminating—but only up to a point.
Beyond that, the metaphor begins to reveal its own limits.
People are not supply curves.
Societies are not perfectly rational markets.
And when policy is driven more by perceived imbalance than measured reality, the outcome is less like a well-functioning economy—
and more like one perpetually searching for a price it cannot find.
INTEL KARTEL 