Andy Kessler dislikes Bill Gates’s “robot tax” idea about as much as I do and explainS his reasons in the Wall Street Journal. Among them, Kessler doesn’t like how such ideas — particular Gates’s notion that we may want to slow progress so workers can better adjust — feeds into the “degrowth” movement. Yes, “degrowth” is kind of a thing. Kessler:

There is a murmuring movement out of Europe known as “degrowth.” If this sounds to you like a cabal of cave dwellers, you’re not that far off. Degrowth Week in Budapest last summer featured enchanting sessions like this one: “Popular competence building against the Technocracy.” Channeling Ludd, industrial insurgents and sustainability samurais want to keep things the way they are, like the eco-protesters at Standing Rock. The site degrowth.org is clear about the movement’s unproductive goals: Consume less and share more.

Well, advanced economies just ran a fascinating, real-world degrowth experiment. It was called the Global Financial Crisis. An economic shock followed a decade of sub-par economic growth. It wasn’t broadly popular. Really not all.