Re: [ox-en] Commons in a taxonomy of goods

• From: Stefan Meretz <stefan meretz.de>
• Date: Sat, 19 Jun 2010 08:54:27 +0200

On 2010-06-19 03:38, Alex Rollin wrote:

If you have 5 apples and 6 persons, and every person want an
apple you can say that apples are scarce

No, the availability of apples may be limited at one time at a
location. Limitedness and scarcity are two different things. If
you need more apples, then more apples can be produced to overcome
current limitations. However, if you produce apples as
commodities, then they are scarce and none of the 6 persons
wanting apples get one of the million apples being produced unless
they exchange them with money. Scarcity is a precondition of being
a commodity, thus a social form of products being produced as
commodities.

so you need people and apples, its a social problem

That's what I say: The way of production is a social (societal)
question.

This is like saying that scarcity is always by design, but this would
not be true for, say, something where their are physical limits to
the production of the resource.  Is there another word for that?  Or
is it just a hard limit instead of scarcity?

Yes, my proposal is to distinguish between limitation -- and there are 
limitations for a lot of resources -- and scarcity, which I would agree 
is "artificial limitation" or as you put it "limitation by design".

Limitations can be overcome, it is only a question of creativity in 
which ways: by increased production, by replacement, by other social 
solutions. Please note: overcoming limitations does not necessarily mean 
to produce "more", but to find appropriate ways to satisfy needs, 
because production in general is a means to satisfy needs.

However, satisfying needs is only a secondary effect of producing goods 
as commodities, the first and alien goal is to make money. In order to 
make money goods must be scarce. Thus scarcity is a defect by design, 
because due to being a precondition of selling commodities scarcity can 
never be overcome.

Ciao,
Stefan

-- 
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• Follow-Ups:
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• References:
  • [ox-en] Commons in a taxonomy of goods
    • From: Stefan Meretz
  • Re: [ox-en] Commons in a taxonomy of goods
    • From: Stefan Meretz
  • Re: [ox-en] Commons in a taxonomy of goods
    • From: Alex Rollin

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