Alas, this happens rarely. As "The Economist" notes gloomily,
economists have the most disheartening record of failed predictions -
and prescriptions.
The Misconception of Scarcity
By: Dr. Sam Vaknin
Also published by United Press International (UPI)
Are we confronted merely with a bear market in stocks - or is it the
first phase of a global contraction of the magnitude of the Great
Depression? The answer overwhelmingly depends on how we understand
scarcity.
It will be only a mild overstatement to say that the science of
economics, such as it is, revolves around the Malthusian concept of
scarcity. Our infinite wants, the finiteness of our resources and the
bad job we too often make of allocating them efficiently and optimally
- lead to mismatches between supply and demand. We are forever forced
to choose between opportunities, between alternative uses of resources,
painfully mindful of their costs.
This is how the perennial textbook "Economics" (seventeenth edition),
authored by Nobel prizewinner Paul Samuelson and William Nordhaus,
defines the dismal science:
"Economics is the study of how societies use scarce resources to
produce valuable commodities and distribute them among different
people".
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