Difference between revisions of "Artificial scarcity"
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== Responses to artificial scarcity == | == Responses to artificial scarcity == | ||
| + | In the absence of artificial scarcity, businesses and individuals would create tools based on their own need (demand). For example, if a business had a strong need for a voice recognition program, they would pay to have the program developed to suit their needs. The business would profit not on the program, but the on the resulting boost in efficiency caused by the program. The subsequent abundance of the program would lower operating costs for the developer as well as other businesses using the new program. Lower costs for businesses result in lower prices in the competitive free market. Lower prices from suppliers would also raise profits for the original developer. In abundance, businesses would continue to pay to improve the program to best suit their own needs, and increase profits. Over time, the original business makes a return on investment, and the final consumer has access to a program that suits their needs better than any one program developer can predict. This is the common rationale behind [[open-source]] software, such as [[Mozilla Firefox]]. | ||
The term 'artificial scarcity' is used by [[Technocracy Incorporated]] to point out one aspect of productive inefficiency in the [[Technocratic views of the Price system|price system]].<ref> http://www.technocracy.org/Archives/I%20Am%20The%20Price%20System-r.HTM I Am The Price System R. B. Langan 1944 Published in:Great Lakes Technocrat March/April 1944, No. 66</ref> Technocracy advocates predict that a technologically advanced state is capable of producing an abundance of consumer goods, depending on an areas resource base.<ref>http://ecen.com/eee9/ecoterme.htm Economy and Thermodynamics</ref> Technocrats point out empirical evidence; even though the productive capacity may exist to feed everyone in a given area, under-production, waste, or misallocation is used to enforce scarcity, because there is no way to sell an abundance. A conflict between economic coersion (forcefully maintaining a low supply) and scientific reality (natural abundance) stifles the possibility for abundance within the context of a given resource base and land area. A price system only creates opportunities for scarce products, whereas a method of [[Energy Accounting]] according to this idea, would make consumables available to all in a [[Technate]].<ref>http://www.eoearth.org/article/Biophysical_economics</ref> | The term 'artificial scarcity' is used by [[Technocracy Incorporated]] to point out one aspect of productive inefficiency in the [[Technocratic views of the Price system|price system]].<ref> http://www.technocracy.org/Archives/I%20Am%20The%20Price%20System-r.HTM I Am The Price System R. B. Langan 1944 Published in:Great Lakes Technocrat March/April 1944, No. 66</ref> Technocracy advocates predict that a technologically advanced state is capable of producing an abundance of consumer goods, depending on an areas resource base.<ref>http://ecen.com/eee9/ecoterme.htm Economy and Thermodynamics</ref> Technocrats point out empirical evidence; even though the productive capacity may exist to feed everyone in a given area, under-production, waste, or misallocation is used to enforce scarcity, because there is no way to sell an abundance. A conflict between economic coersion (forcefully maintaining a low supply) and scientific reality (natural abundance) stifles the possibility for abundance within the context of a given resource base and land area. A price system only creates opportunities for scarce products, whereas a method of [[Energy Accounting]] according to this idea, would make consumables available to all in a [[Technate]].<ref>http://www.eoearth.org/article/Biophysical_economics</ref> | ||
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== See also == | == See also == | ||