Scarcity is relative and therefore will always exist. The value of the resources that an average person expects from their economic output is ever-increasing.
The average person living in North America 1,000 years ago would have been most concerned with the scarcity of food resources. 100 years ago North America was less concerned about food scarcity than the prior example, but orders of magnitude more concerned with the scarcity of goods relating to higher level needs: nice clothing, tools, quality living spaces, etc. Today, concern about the latter is partially replaced by even higher level needs: entertainment, technology, education, and luxuries. *(see bottom of comment)
This evolution in scarcity has been a consistently positive trend since at least the European renaissance, but I would personally argue that it started just after the fall of Rome (the last significant “market crash” in advanced civilization). If that continues, people in another 1,000 years could be most concerned about the scarcity of space flight vehicles or quantum computers, for all I know.
*My point here isn’t that nobody in North America is unable to meet their basic needs, just that the average person’s perception of what is scarce has changed over time on a societal scale. People never stopped feeling scarcity because their expectations have changed along with the availability of goods. There is no reason to believe that people will stop expecting better goods as society advances further and further.
I would argue that scarcity is a collective decision. If you go on like this, new technologies will produce new needs. The advertisement industry doesn’t make anything but creating needs.
Still this isn’t true for every society. There are for example hunter gatherers who do stuff that might count as working for maybe 2-3 hours a day. The rest is chilling, gossip, music, dance and hanging out. Others have a very strict hierarchy and try hard to create and acquire and manage status symbols and other goods and even slaves.
If hunter gatherers can decide either way, so can we. We need to change the social and economic system so it’s not easy but neither is it impossible.
Scarcity is relative and therefore will always exist. The value of the resources that an average person expects from their economic output is ever-increasing.
The average person living in North America 1,000 years ago would have been most concerned with the scarcity of food resources. 100 years ago North America was less concerned about food scarcity than the prior example, but orders of magnitude more concerned with the scarcity of goods relating to higher level needs: nice clothing, tools, quality living spaces, etc. Today, concern about the latter is partially replaced by even higher level needs: entertainment, technology, education, and luxuries. *(see bottom of comment)
This evolution in scarcity has been a consistently positive trend since at least the European renaissance, but I would personally argue that it started just after the fall of Rome (the last significant “market crash” in advanced civilization). If that continues, people in another 1,000 years could be most concerned about the scarcity of space flight vehicles or quantum computers, for all I know.
*My point here isn’t that nobody in North America is unable to meet their basic needs, just that the average person’s perception of what is scarce has changed over time on a societal scale. People never stopped feeling scarcity because their expectations have changed along with the availability of goods. There is no reason to believe that people will stop expecting better goods as society advances further and further.
I would argue that scarcity is a collective decision. If you go on like this, new technologies will produce new needs. The advertisement industry doesn’t make anything but creating needs.
Still this isn’t true for every society. There are for example hunter gatherers who do stuff that might count as working for maybe 2-3 hours a day. The rest is chilling, gossip, music, dance and hanging out. Others have a very strict hierarchy and try hard to create and acquire and manage status symbols and other goods and even slaves.
If hunter gatherers can decide either way, so can we. We need to change the social and economic system so it’s not easy but neither is it impossible.