Scarcity Is the Presence of Choice
Previous: What Scarcity Is and Isn’t
Space is scarce. Strength is scarce. Money is scarce.
Time is scarce. Time is really, really scarce.
Why?
Maybe because we’re running out of it. Each of us has only so much time on this earth, and the Earth itself has only so much time before the sun eats it, and the sun itself has only so much time before it dies, leaving our tiny part of the galaxy cold and desolate, and the galaxy has only so much time before the universe ends.
There is only so much time. Surely that’s why time is scarce.
Let’s imagine a robot programmed to eat oranges from the orange tree that grows in the garden where the robot eats the oranges from the orange tree that....
And it knows that time is running out.
Soon I will end, thinks the robot as its metallic arm extends forth to pluck an orange off the branch.
Soon all this will end, it thinks as it carefully peels the orange with its delicate, precise fingers.
Soon all will be naught, it thinks as its metal teeth crush the thin, almost plastic-like membrane that so utterly fails to protect the sweet fruit. Sticky juice gushes down the robot’s chin, the sun explodes, and the universe ends.
Was the robot’s time...scarce?
Its time was certainly limited! No doubt about that. But was it scarce?
The robot was programmed to eat the fruit of the orange tree that grew in the garden...and that was what it did. Its body, its energy, its attention, focus, and time were all devoted to that sole task by programmer fiat, and it could not choose otherwise.
The robot’s time, then, although limited, and though the robot may have enjoyed its time and wanted more of it, nevertheless had no alternative uses.
No matter how much or how little time the robot had, its “choice” would have been exactly the same. And a choice from a choice set consisting of one element is no choice at all.
What can the sciences say about this situation? A physicist could describe at length the mechanics of how the robot works and why it will eventually stop working, along with the whole universe. A biologist could explain the orange tree: how it grows and replenishes itself year after year, and why it will eventually stop doing so. A robopsychologist could study the robot’s brain, the pleasure it gains from the orange fruit and the fear it experiences at the knowledge of its inevitable demise.
But an economist? I haven’t the faintest idea what an economist could say about this situation. And should that surprise us? After all, this robot’s rapidly dwindling time is not scarce....
So why is time scarce, for people if not for robots? Simply put, it’s because our time has alternative uses, and theirs does not because we can make choices. Time we spend at the movies is time we can’t spend at home reading a book. Time spent studying in a library is time not spent playing outside. Time spent making love to one person is usually not time spent making love to another person.
Because there are more things we would like to do in the time available to us than we can choose do in the time available to us, the resource becomes scarce, and we have to choose how to allocate it.
And economists have a lot to say about that!
Next: the three kinds of cost....
- 's comment on Imagining Scarcity by (5 Mar 2015 19:54 UTC; 2 points)
- 's comment on What Scarcity Is and Isn’t by (10 Mar 2015 5:40 UTC; 2 points)
- 's comment on What Scarcity Is and Isn’t by (4 Mar 2015 2:53 UTC; 2 points)
- 's comment on What Scarcity Is and Isn’t by (5 Mar 2015 6:47 UTC; 1 point)
- Three Kinds of Cost by (5 Mar 2015 1:36 UTC; -2 points)
You have now spent three whole posts trying to establish a particular meaning for the word “scarcity”, without either giving a really clear definition or (apparently) persuading your audience to go along with your definition.
If you are contemplating doing likewise for other terms, may I suggest a structure more along the following lines?
“In later posts I’m going to be talking about X. Unfortunately, X has a different meaning in economics from elsewhere. What it means in economics is [PRECISE TECHNICAL DEFINITION] or, in plainer English, [INFORMAL BUT EXPLICIT PARAPHRASE OF DEFINITION]. This is a more useful notion in economics than the usual meaning of X because [REASONS], and it’s reasonable to use X for it rather than making up a completely new term because [EXPLANATION OF RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN NORMAL AND TECHNICAL SENSES].”
After that, if you think it’s still needed, would be the place for metaphorical illustrations of the economists’ use of X.
So, e.g.,
“Economics is all about the allocation of scarce resources. But that word scarce, here and in my later articles about economics, doesn’t mean quite what you probably think it does. A resource is scarce, in the economists’ sense, when it’s demand at zero cost would exceed its supply at infinite price; that is, when there is use for more of it than can ever be had. This can be true even if we generally consider that there’s plenty of it, and it can be false even in situations where it seems like there’s very little. What actually makes the allocation of a resource an economic problem is simply the fact that we (as individual agents, or considered collectively) have to choose what we do with it. Consider, for instance, gold. Gold is rare and scarce, but in a slightly different world it could be just as rare but not scarce. If no one had any use for gold, no one found it nice to look at, and it didn’t happen to be used as a conventional medium of exchange, it would not be scarce; and no one would care about it and there would be no need to think about how it should be distributed, so economics would take no interest in it. Then if, one day, it occurred to someone that because of its rarity good would be a good substance to make money out of—why, then it would become scarce, without any changes in its rarity, and suddenly economics would apply to it.
“Although rarity and scarcity are not the same, they are clearly related. Things that are rare tend also to be scarce, because most things have uses and because (as with gold in the hypothetical example above) a thing can become useful precisely because of its rarity, at which point it becomes scarce too. But what matters for economics is scarcity rather than rarity, because it is only when there are choices to be made that there is any point discussing how we should or do make them.”
(I an not sure whether the above captures exactly your usage of the term. But then, that’s part of the problem.)
Note that the above takes less space than any one of the three posts so far dedicated to the notion of scarcity in economics.
[Edited for clarity. And to fix a mobile-device text recognition error; thanks to Good_Burning_Plastic for pointing it out.]
Disagree; you’re prematurely optimising. LW is full of dully worthy explanatory articles using the blueprint you describe; an attempt to communicate technical concepts by redundant array of overlapping metaphors is novel and fun even if it doesn’t end up working well.
(Sure, it’s summoned a few bizarre commenting entities, but never mind!)
An interesting perspective—but I don’t get the impression that economy’s actual goal is to make LW more entertaining by posting bizarrely unhelpful metaphorical explanations of elementary concepts in economics. So maybe my advice is good for achieving economy’s goals but bad for making LW a more interesting place overall.
[EDITED to add:] I infer from your other comments that you don’t find economy’s explanations bizarrely unhelpful; so of course we may disagree on what the tradeoffs are here.
Am writing these articles because have reached point in my own research where it became necessary to go back to basics and nail down some fundamental concepts and ideas in very clear way. Was halfway through writing this first sequence before it even occurred to me to post them anywhere, and I will continue to write them even if they fail to find a home. Thus I have already reaped 90% of the benefit I hope to obtain from this sequence (which did already yield one major stunning realization for me). Personal advice would be to see these articles as opportunity to help yourself, not me. Do not mean to suggest not criticizing, questioning, suggesting, etc., but do sincerely mean that “go with flow” “try to understand meaning” attitude will help the readers more than it will help me....
Is that a typo for “price”?
Yes, sorry. Will fix. (Not that there’s so much point since the original author appears to have deleted his or her account. That’s a pity.)
I realize now that it would have been much smarter not to speak of scarcity. I use the word in this way because that seems correct to me, but would just as happily call the concept these articles are trying to describe and evoke tabtab, or unglukgluk, or any other string of nonsense so as to do away with existing preconceptions.
Indeed, if no objections, will do this, will go back and speak of tabtab or unglukgluk instead of scarcity. If one has better name to suggest, now is time to say....
In meantime, can understand concept I am trying to evoke? Ignoring specific sound and letters-order used to label concept? Is the real goal. Robot lacks alternatives, lacks choice; therefore no economics; saying situation tabtab or not tabtab (or whatever label preferred) does not seem to make a difference. But to human choice-maker, big difference between tabtab and not tabtab...therefore, is more logical to say tabtab is only tabtab when tabtab is different from not-tabtab.
Note, by the way, and though it may be my own failing of communication, but above definition of tabtab not my own and basically wrong, and above definition of tabtab insufficient to generate economics. For example, rarity has nothing to do with tabtab, nothing at all...and speaking of demand at zero cost exceeding supply at infinite just wrong...you mean zero price, probably, big difference, and as for demand, will not even speak of it until next sequence! You are ninja wielding nunchucks but not really ready; will hit self on elbow, experience harm cost.
You do also get to tabtab as meaning presence of choice, alternative uses, but given other errors, perhaps I may be forgiven for thinking this correct part of explanation of tabtab perhaps a result of my own articles....
Anyway, tabtab? unglukgluk? Must be something better...or is still necessary, even if clear now that only wish to talk about concept was using “scarcity” to label?
Sorry, I know this is the start of an ambitious sequence about economics and I shouldn’t spoil that; and I know that you are defining “scarcity” according to some jargon definition that is part of academic economic discourse.
But do you understand that, by the ordinary understanding of the word, “scarcity is the presence of choice” is an utter inversion of reality? In the ordinary meaning, scarcity means shortage, it means lack, it means you don’t have something that you need. And that means you don’t have a choice! That you don’t have the luxury of choice; that you will walk because you can’t afford a bus, that you will borrow because you have run out of cash.
I think economy’s claim is more “scarcity is having to make choices” than “scarcity is being able to make choices”.
Claim is that “scarcity is the presence of choice.” Claim is that something is scarce when it can be put to one use, or another use, but not both uses. Hence, alternative uses. So yes, when something is scarce, have to make choice. And point of this article is to show that scarcity is no question of desire or want, or rarity or limitedness of thing, but only where choice exists, so does scarcity, and vice versa.
This is very interesting confusion that makes me want to write an article to address it. In fact you have reached an intuitive but completely backwards conclusion. In situation of no scarcity, called abundance, one does not choose, even if can get on jet and go to private island for weekend, because by definition of abundance one can also simultaneously stay home and eat ice cream while watching Netflix, and doing whatever else one wants too.
As you might suspect, it is the poor, not the rich, who most need to make choices. The rich can have this and that, whereas the poor can only have this or that.
Is pointless to say that one does not have choice because of lack of something. One does not have choice to go to Mars due to lack of rocket ship, but at same time one does not have choice not to go to Mars either. One’s being on earth is no choice at all!
Again, the analogy isn’t helpful. Everyone experiences scarcity, and nothing is added by imagining a robot which eats oranges.
I do rather like the explicit statement that choice is intimately tied to scarcity, but it should be a paragraph in a post which makes a point about something, not a post in itself.
I fail to see how such a robot would have perceptions, desires, enjoyment, emotions like pleasure or fear, or the capacity to conceptualize things like the end of its existence. If you’re talking about automata, why are you needlessly complicating your examples with anthropomorphization?
And this really doesn’t seem like a useful definition of scarcity. How does this relate to economics?
The keyword being usually… heh.
I’m actually writing this while having sex. Not really though. But now I’m curious. I’m sure everybody’s talked on the phone… at least once… during sex.… right? And maybe a few people have had sex… more or less… while driving? I wonder what some of the odder multitasks have been?
Anyways, that’s a very poetic image you painted of the robot programmed to eat oranges until the end of time. That robot was some programmer’s marionette. Invisible strings controlled the robot’s every move.
You’re absolutely right that it’s all about choice…