I realize now that it would have been much smarter not to speak of scarcity. I use the word in this way because that seems correct to me, but would just as happily call the concept these articles are trying to describe and evoke tabtab, or unglukgluk, or any other string of nonsense so as to do away with existing preconceptions.
Indeed, if no objections, will do this, will go back and speak of tabtab or unglukgluk instead of scarcity. If one has better name to suggest, now is time to say....
In meantime, can understand concept I am trying to evoke? Ignoring specific sound and letters-order used to label concept? Is the real goal. Robot lacks alternatives, lacks choice; therefore no economics; saying situation tabtab or not tabtab (or whatever label preferred) does not seem to make a difference. But to human choice-maker, big difference between tabtab and not tabtab...therefore, is more logical to say tabtab is only tabtab when tabtab is different from not-tabtab.
Note, by the way, and though it may be my own failing of communication, but above definition of tabtab not my own and basically wrong, and above definition of tabtab insufficient to generate economics. For example, rarity has nothing to do with tabtab, nothing at all...and speaking of demand at zero cost exceeding supply at infinite just wrong...you mean zero price, probably, big difference, and as for demand, will not even speak of it until next sequence! You are ninja wielding nunchucks but not really ready; will hit self on elbow, experience harm cost.
You do also get to tabtab as meaning presence of choice, alternative uses, but given other errors, perhaps I may be forgiven for thinking this correct part of explanation of tabtab perhaps a result of my own articles....
Anyway, tabtab? unglukgluk? Must be something better...or is still necessary, even if clear now that only wish to talk about concept was using "scarcity" to label?
Previous: What Scarcity Is and Isn't
Space is scarce. Strength is scarce. Money is scarce.
Time is scarce. Time is really, really scarce.
Why?
Maybe because we're running out of it. Each of us has only so much time on this earth, and the Earth itself has only so much time before the sun eats it, and the sun itself has only so much time before it dies, leaving our tiny part of the galaxy cold and desolate, and the galaxy has only so much time before the universe ends.
There is only so much time. Surely that's why time is scarce.
Let's imagine a robot programmed to eat oranges from the orange tree that grows in the garden where the robot eats the oranges from the orange tree that....
And it knows that time is running out.
Soon I will end, thinks the robot as its metallic arm extends forth to pluck an orange off the branch.
Soon all this will end, it thinks as it carefully peels the orange with its delicate, precise fingers.
Soon all will be naught, it thinks as its metal teeth crush the thin, almost plastic-like membrane that so utterly fails to protect the sweet fruit. Sticky juice gushes down the robot's chin, the sun explodes, and the universe ends.
Was the robot's time...scarce?
Its time was certainly limited! No doubt about that. But was it scarce?
The robot was programmed to eat the fruit of the orange tree that grew in the garden...and that was what it did. Its body, its energy, its attention, focus, and time were all devoted to that sole task by programmer fiat, and it could not choose otherwise.
The robot's time, then, although limited, and though the robot may have enjoyed its time and wanted more of it, nevertheless had no alternative uses.
No matter how much or how little time the robot had, its "choice" would have been exactly the same. And a choice from a choice set consisting of one element is no choice at all.
What can the sciences say about this situation? A physicist could describe at length the mechanics of how the robot works and why it will eventually stop working, along with the whole universe. A biologist could explain the orange tree: how it grows and replenishes itself year after year, and why it will eventually stop doing so. A robopsychologist could study the robot's brain, the pleasure it gains from the orange fruit and the fear it experiences at the knowledge of its inevitable demise.
But an economist? I haven't the faintest idea what an economist could say about this situation. And should that surprise us? After all, this robot's rapidly dwindling time is not scarce....
So why is time scarce, for people if not for robots? Simply put, it's because our time has alternative uses, and theirs does not because we can make choices. Time we spend at the movies is time we can't spend at home reading a book. Time spent studying in a library is time not spent playing outside. Time spent making love to one person is usually not time spent making love to another person.
Because there are more things we would like to do in the time available to us than we can choose do in the time available to us, the resource becomes scarce, and we have to choose how to allocate it.
And economists have a lot to say about that!
Next: the three kinds of cost....