Hypothetical situation, what if the miners disagree with the economic majority in activating something and the economic majority announces that it will activate and enforce it themselves and take the risk of a chain split?
In such a case, it would be a Mexican standoff until one or the other groups capitulates. There is no a priori way to determine which group would cave. For while it is true that a chain that nobody wants (as if it would be nobody) is worthless, similarly a chain that cannot be traded upon is also worthless.
But a more important question to ask would be why it is that you think that non-mining, validating entities -- the most Sybil-able group in the ecosystem -- has anything to do whatsoever with economic power? But that was not what I was asking. I was asking about the importance of non-mining nodes enforcing the rules and validating transactions and blocks themselves. If there was "economic power" that would come with it, it would be secondary or a side effect.
No. See my bolding of your quote. You were
not asking about the importance of non-mining validators. You asked about a divergence between miners' desires, and desires of the
economic majority. You seem to me to imply that non-mining validator count is an indication of economic majority. If this indeed be your claim, I call bullshit. Non-mining validators are a trivial cost to spin up any number of sybil clones. As opposed to mining power or demonstrated coin hodlings.
Nevertheless,
I am asking why you think non-mining validator count has any bearing on a measurement of 'economic majority'?
But if the miners came to decide to do a Sybil attack because it is "easy", do you believe that the economic majority running non-mining nodes will follow? Would it not cause another chain-split? Do you really believe that the miner's chain will be called "the Bitcoin"?