The temptation is eternal to use taxes, regulations, subsidies, and mandates to steer the economy in politically desired directions. Call it the Eternal Urge to Industrial Policy.

Democrats, for the past 15 years, have tried to use government power to make corporations chase “green profits”: green energy, electric cars, green building, etc. Both parties seem to think that they can increase the economy by steering investment in ways the market wouldn’t: See export subsidies and development subsidies. Both parties also try to reward their friends and punish their enemies through industrial policy.

Most recently, some conservatives argue the time has come for even more industrial policy than we currently have, in order to prop up such goods as the breadwinner job and more stable employment, which trickles down to more stable communities.

It’s an understandable temptation. After all, markets are not ends in themselves. Markets are good insofar as they serve the human good, and at times, society needs to curb or steer markets. Breadwinner jobs and stable communities are both higher-order goods than are free markets.

But experience has shown that efforts to steer markets tend to fall short of reaching their aims while creating unintended negative consequences.

Cronyism is one reason: Arming politicians and bureaucrats with the power to control the flow of billions of dollars results in those billions flowing to cronies, political allies, and other insiders who do not maximize the promised benefits (environmental, labor, or social) to the public. Simple error is another reason industrial policy tends to fail. Policymakers tend to know less than the market as a whole, and they tend to misprice and misallocate.

The Biden administration and the national conservatives these days both are targeting job creation. Biden is also targeting massive infrastructure development. (The U.S. does need a lot more housing, though it’s not clear that’s a Biden priority.)

Here’s a major problem with the Biden infrastructure plans and the NatCon job creation: We don’t have a shortage of jobs these days. We will soon have a shortage of working-age people.

The builders’ lobby is calling it a “labor shortage,” and the Financial Times is running with its case Monday.

Now, when an industry lobby complains that it cannot attract workers, the proper response is always, “Then you should pay more.” Obviously, the builders could fill their openings if they paid more. This would cut into profits and increase the costs, yes, but that is how the market works. If nobody will pay for what you’re selling at that increased price, then you are asking for a subsidy in the form of government-provided cheap labor, which is what guest worker programs are.

Policymakers shouldn’t ignore the builders here, though. They should instead acknowledge their concerns and thus second-guess the assumption every politician and policymaker has held for a generation or more: the assumption that what we need now is more jobs.

Here is the most important fact about the labor market going forward:

The working-age population has flatlined, as the baby boomers retire, and as we have fewer new 15-year-olds each year. That latter part is because starting in 2008, Americans had fewer babies basically every year. Starting in 2026, the number of working-age adults will drop significantly every single year until at least the 2040s.

This means that anyone who has steel and concrete and land will be increasingly desperate for hands to build anything. It means every industry will be competing for workers. It means labor will increase its bargaining power each year. There are good and bad things tied up with all of that.

But it also means that public policy aimed at “creating jobs” is folly. This dampens the appeal of trickle-down Democrats such as Biden who like to hand money to corporations in the name of helping workers. It also means the industrial policy NatCons are fighting the last war.