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> The thing is, scarcity in the economic sense is defined in terms of peoples' wants, which seem to be able to expand indefinitely. It's unclear to me whether

> The thing is, scarcity in the economic sense is defined in terms of peoples' wants, which seem to be able to expand indefinitely. It's unclear to me whether this is true. For most of history, "infinitely expanding people wants" was not a thing, at least in terms of material wants. Maybe because it was not believed to be possible? But there are plenty of examples of autocratic rulers in pre-industrial times who extracted less resources from their subjects than it's believed they could. So, did they balance that against some risk or the effort required? Or were they simply uninterested in maximizing their personal wealth beyond a point? I feel even in modern capitalist society, above a certain threshold (which varies from person to person and according to circumstances) people are more motivated by status and recognition than material wants... > If the robots that do all our work for us need to be as smart as us to do so, then they probably wouldn't be willing to work for free. Does being as smart as us require being as self-aware as us? Does it require free will? Does it beget human needs and values? If 000, my scenario holds. If 100, we might be faced with a serious moral dilemma. If 110, who knows what our relationship with such beings would be. If 111, I've re-invented slavery and it should be abolished again at once, but I sort of doubt the answer to all three questions will be true. All other configurations are hard to imagine.

dragonwriter 12y ago
> For most of history, "infinitely expanding people wants" was not a thing, at least in terms of material wants. Economics addresses material wants exclusively, but with a broader view than many people take when informally using the term "material wants". The only situation in which economic scarcity would not exist in the general sense would be if there was no good, service, or change in condition which would improve experienced utility for any person. Further, with real people rather than the basically omniscient beings modeled by rational choice theory, to have a non-scarcity society in any meaningful sense, you'd need instead for their to be no good, service, etc., which any person would expect, even irrationally to increase their experienced utility. To be a non-scarcity society with regard to a particular good, service, etc. (or any class of such good, service, etc.), requires the same thing (for either the theoretical and practical interpretations as above), but only within the class of goods, services, etc. of interest. While there's certainly evidence that there may be a certain level of wealth -- which a number of people in the modern developed world reach or far exceed -- beyond which increasing wealth has no net positive impact on experience utility on average, I don't think there's any evidence that at any point in history there has been an society that is non-scarcity either in the actual sense of no actual capacity for improved utility from increased supply of goods, services, etc., or the practical sense of no expectation of improved utility from such things. There's certainly times where economic growth was not the norm and so expectations didn't expand as rapidly, but infinite wants doesn't mean that expectations are infinite, its that more goods (even in excess of expectations) won't satiate the desire for even more goods on top of that. > people are more motivated by status and recognition than material wants... Status and recognition are basically services provided by other people in exchange for something done for those other people -- they are economic goods, even though they may generally be the subject of fairly informal exchanges that are harder to attribute monetary value than more formal (even barter) exchanges.

dragonwriter 12y ago

> For most of history, "infinitely expanding people wants" was not a thing, at least in terms of material wants. Economics addresses material wants exclusively, but with a broader view than many people take when informally using the term "material wants". The only situation in which economic scarcity would not exist in the general sense would be if there was no good, service, or change in condition which would improve experienced utility for any person. Further, with real people rather than the basically omniscient beings modeled by rational choice theory, to have a non-scarcity society in any meaningful sense, you'd need instead for their to be no good, service, etc., which any person would expect, even irrationally to increase their experienced utility. To be a non-scarcity society with regard to a particular good, service, etc. (or any class of such good, service, etc.), requires the same thing (for either the theoretical and practical interpretations as above), but only within the class of goods, services, etc. of interest. While there's certainly evidence that there may be a certain level of wealth -- which a number of people in the modern developed world reach or far exceed -- beyond which increasing wealth has no net positive impact on experience utility on average, I don't think there's any evidence that at any point in history there has been an society that is non-scarcity either in the actual sense of no actual capacity for improved utility from increased supply of goods, services, etc., or the practical sense of no expectation of improved utility from such things. There's certainly times where economic growth was not the norm and so expectations didn't expand as rapidly, but infinite wants doesn't mean that expectations are infinite, its that more goods (even in excess of expectations) won't satiate the desire for even more goods on top of that. > people are more motivated by status and recognition than material wants... Status and recognition are basically services provided by other people in exchange for something done for those other people -- they are economic goods, even though they may generally be the subject of fairly informal exchanges that are harder to attribute monetary value than more formal (even barter) exchanges.