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.
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!
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!