The classical concept of scarcity - unlimited wants vs. limited
resources - is lacking. Anticipating much-feared scarcity encourages
hoarding which engenders the very evil it was meant to fend off. Ideas
and knowledge - inputs as important as land and water - are not subject
to scarcity, as work done by Nobel laureate Robert Solow and, more
importantly, by Paul Romer, an economist from the University of
California at Berkeley, clearly demonstrates. Additionally, it is
useful to distinguish natural from synthetic resources.
The scarcity of most natural resources (a type of "external scarcity")
is only theoretical at present. Granted, many resources are unevenly
distributed and badly managed. But this is man-made ("internal")
scarcity and can be undone by Man. It is truer to assume, for practical
purposes, that most natural resources - when not egregiously abused and
when freely priced - are infinite rather than scarce. The
anthropologist Marshall Sahlins discovered that primitive peoples he
has studied had no concept of "scarcity" - only of "satiety". He called
them the first "affluent societies".
This is because, fortunately, the number of people on Earth is finite -
and manageable - while most resources can either be replenished or
substituted.
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