The flaw in this logic hinges on the assumption that ISK is a currency; it’s not. It doesn’t have any properties of a traditional currency (e.g. a limited supply as in the case of the gold standard, or being centrally managed by an authority as in the case of fiat). ISK is just another resource, like a mineral or a PI good or a reaction output. You need more ISK? You go out and print as much of it as you want. The closest analogue we have to a real currency is PLEX. What this means is that the inflation we see in the game is essentially purely material in nature, since virtually every single type of item in the game acts as a currency in itself.
If there’s a lack of destruction, material outputs go up, and their values crash. Likewise, with PvE being uninhibited with the threat of loss, ISK output would also increase (e.g. imagine how much more ISK would be created if Gila bots didn’t need to dock up every time a neutral comes into local).
The end result of this is that everything in the game, aside from exceptionally rare items of which there simply aren’t enough to go around, would lose its value. Like I said before, you would get a “Diablo” economy, where the gold and most items are completely worthless (and given out freely by players), and only a few exceptionally rare and desired items have any real value in what essentially becomes a chat-based barter economy.
It has nothing to do with me. You simply had to have been here during the first few years of the game. Go read the old forums, and you’ll see how much attitudes differed back then. Maybe find some old dev interviews and Q&As. The grand vision of the game was an industrial base protected by military might, instead of the two acting as completely unaffiliated components, the way they do today.
