[hilbert42]

"Forgive me for being suspicious of any invisible hand based argument."

So am I, it's generally wheeled out in the absence of any other sufficiently-developed argument or alternatively as shorthand for one that's too hard to articulate. You're right, if we can't articulate the cause then we've little hope of moving forward.

I also don't fault today's students who consider their studies tightly coupled to their llivelihood, especially so in fields such as engineering.

Whilst I'm glad to hear that learning for its own sake is still seen as important the demise of humanities subjects at many universities in recent years doesn't overfill me with confidence that it will remain so.