Desire & Scarcity (was Re: Desire under the Elms)

[Brad De Long]

>Doug:
>
>  >JKSCHW at aol.com wrote:
>  >>Has it occurred to you that the only other bunch of academics 
>other than the
>  >>pomists to talk about Desire are the neoclassical economists and rational
>  >>choice theorists?
>  >
>  >Um, uh, what about poets, psychoanalysts, and lovers, not to mention
>  >Iggy Pop? Who said anything about limiting the universe to academics?
>
>Justin's remarks on Desire are on the mark.  Surely we'd do well to 
>remember the fact that introductory textbooks on Economics all begin 
>with the discussion of Desire & Scarcity.  In the world of Econ 101, 
>it is the abstraction called Desire -- unlimited wants -- that makes 
>us all, rich or poor, experience Scarcity.

Yet it does seem to be true that the line between need and useful 
convenience on the one hand and embarrassingly decadent luxury on the 
other sets in at roughly twice one's current level of consumption--no 
matter what one's current level of consumption is.

Or, as George Stigler put it:

"It would be easy to provide everyone with a physiologically adequate 
diet; for example, a [hu]man could perhaps live for a year on the 
following diet, at a cost of about $8 a month in 1950:

	--370 pounds of wheat flour

	--57 cans of evaporated milk

	--111 pounds of cabbage

	--25 pounds of spinach

	--285 pounds of dried navy beans.

"But [hu]man insists upon luxuries such as meat, and should we 
somehow fully satisfy his desire (despite his penchant for shifting 
from sow belly to pheasant), he will no doubt insist upon shifting to 
another and more expensive food.

"Thus, from an Olympian peak, one may say that the economic system 
has as its purpose forcing people to find new scarcities. From a 
closer vantage point, the study of economics has as its purpose the 
alteration of a host of circumstances and policies that deprive large 
numbers of people of eminently desirable things a more efficiently 
organized society could afford..." (From The Theory of Price, (New 
York: Macmillan, 1952), pp. 2-3.
And, indeed, when I posted the Chez Panisse dinner menu (which has 
changed; today it is all fish even though it is not yet Lent:

	--An aperitif

	--Smoked fish salad with pickled Chino Ranch greens

	--Truffled scrambled eggs with Dungeness crab and garlic croutons

	--Black sea bass cooked on its skin; with roasted root 
vegetables, fried onions, and garden lettuces

	--Hazelnut, coffee, and chocolate ice cream bombe)

One of the first comments was "how about wine?"...


:-)

Brad DeLong