Scarcity

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

>>What do you think of Marshall Sahlins' argument?
>>
>>*****   The Original Affluent Society
>>
>
>Sahlins argues athat hunter-gatherers worked a few hours a  day and 
>spent the rest of the time telling stories and hanging out, not a 
>bad life (as long as there wasn't a famine or drought). The Sahlins 
>argument is a favorite among the Live Simply crowd, who think that 
>we can eliminate scarcity by reducing our wants. Theoretically, this 
>is true. It is of course _profoundly_ anti-Marxist, for those of you 
>who care about such things; Marx praised capitalism for its creation 
>of nrew wants and needs. He thought that communism would be better 
>than capitalsim at satisfyting these things. Me, I don't know. But I 
>do know that the genie is out of the bottle. Short of a cataclysmic 
>disaster, we will never be hunter-gathereras, and anyone who 
>davocates reducing (as opposed to, say, rearranging) our needs and 
>wants, will find a cold audience from contemprary workers an 
>oppressed people.
>
>--jks

We will never be hunter-gatherers, to be sure, but will we remain 
Shoppaholics Anonymous under communism as well?

Pre-capitalist peoples experienced wants created by the 
pre-capitalist modes of production; and we have unlimited wants & 
therefore scarcity created by the capitalist mode of production with 
its drive of M-C-M' -- "Accumulate, accumulate! that is Moses and the 
prophets!"  Will communism not create wants in a manner different 
from capitalism, since under communism we presumably won't have the 
same Moses & prophets as capitalism's?

Yoshie