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I don't understand how you can reconcile the notion of capitalism with artificial scarcity. I understand property law as a means of dealing with real scarcity

• wz1000 9y ago
  > it seems so antithetical to capitalism to conjure up some laws to create scarcity. That is precisely what Enclosure(pretty much the birth of capitalism) was. Land was made artificially scarce by concentrating it into the hands of the few, creating a landless working class that had to move to the cities and work in the factories to earn their living. At the time Britain also had something akin to an internal passport system, so that movement of labor between parishes was also restricted. For a bigger, well researched exposition of this, see Kevin Carson's essay "The Iron Fist behind the Invisible Hand". https://c4ss.org/content/24158 https://c4ss.org/content/24158
• jessaustin 9y ago
  "Capitalism" isn't synonymous with "free enterprise". After all, a countryside full of hardworking farmers and craftsmen might exemplify free enterprise, even if no one got rich. Capitalism on the other hand is primarily concerned with capital and its returns. Those returns require a certain level of scarcity. Thus every capitalist society has instituted "artificial" scarcity. E.g. in USA, how many different occupations require licensure?