Status Quo Bias
Cognitive biasPreferring existing arrangements simply because they are the existing arrangements, and treating any change as carrying a burden of proof that the present state does not.
An everyday example
“The current rota has always worked, so changing it would only make things worse.”
The same move in this debate
“The food system works as it is.”
Where this appears
Treats the present configuration as the economy itself rather than as one arrangement among possible ones, so that any alternative looks like loss rather than substitution.
A prospective technology is used to justify leaving present behaviour unchanged, placing the burden of action entirely on the future and none on the present.
The awkwardness of departing from a norm is treated as a property of the alternative rather than of the norm. The same friction would attach to any majority practice.