Scarcity

[Justin Schwartz]

So? Does that make it wrong, just because the neoclassicals believe it? Or 
maybe you are somehow constituted so that, although your life is limitred, 
you have infinite amounts of time to waste, so it's no skin off your nose if 
you have to spend your working life doing something unpleasant that is also 
no help to anyone else?--jks


>
>Justin sez:
> >The other limit is time. Human effort is itself scarce in the sense that
> >each of us can only put out so much of it in our limited lives, so that 
>if
>
>this is the penultimate neoclassical position underpinning the notion of
>"opportunity cost." (I'm not saying that is Justin's purpose or position, 
>just
>that "time" is the ultimate scarce resource for neoclassicals.) Even if 
>nothing
>else were 'scarce', the fact that when you are doing one thing you are not 
>doing
>something else means that 'decisions have to be made'--decisions about
>'allocating' scarce resources among alternative uses, or 'competing ends.'  
>It
>is often presented as a Robinson Crusoe story. Lionel Robbins is the 
>classic
>reference.

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