TIL! I’m entirely inexpert in the topic and posted as a curious layperson.

That said, some of what’s in the article only makes sense to me in the context of a system that’s at least somewhat like what I tried to describe. Maybe you can enlighten me?

> This effect is an example of cross elasticity of demand.

Is the cross-elasticity of demand here not referring specifically to the cross-elasticity of different forms of labor, which exists due to the many common inputs of different forms of labor? Eg land, healthcare, unskilled labor (as an input, in the case of skilled labor as the output—doctors and engineers in my comment)?

In the case of a quartet, if musicians charged what they did in 1700, they would quickly become homeless, and then quickly get other jobs.

So people are either leaving the profession or raising their prices, and either firms pay, high-wage-earners pay, or they get no customers and again get other jobs (like the rope-holders). Is that not the effect?