Sure, we could and probably should and doubtless will change our desires, want other things, different ones. But as long as we live in a society that is rich enough ti support socialism, there will be scarcity,a nd we will have to make choices about how to use our resources and energies. --jks
In a message dated Tue, 26 Sep 2000 10:51:27 AM Eastern Daylight Time, brettk at unicacorp.com writes:
<<
>Oh? So before capitalism, everyone always had enough of what they wanted?
Pretty much, at least if you go back far enough. Our hunter-gatherer ancestors never envied the neighbor's new Mercedes. But they did have enough to eat and had relatively abundant leisure time.
I'm not arguing that we need to go back to that way of life - just to stress that scarcity is a state of mind, and so the notion of scarcity could become meaningless again in a different type of modern society. It is an artifact of the economic assumption that people are all rational maximizers with infinite wants.
Brett
>>