Is Scarcity Real or is it Manufactured?
We've heard it so many times.
"Resources are scarce"
"There's not enough for everybody"
Yepp. We all have. I was on my way back home when this question hit me.
Are resources really scarce or is this whole idea just manufactured?
First off we waste a crap load of stuff. Think of all the gadgets we throw away. All the clothes we go out and splurge on only to find half of them still sitting in the closet waiting to be worn. Let's not even talk about the food we waste. Waste, waste, waste, and more to come. There's so much data that shows how unsustainable this is. The whole world cannot live the American Dream. Sorry I really meant the American Scheme. The Earth and our environment is already being strained under the pressure of the increasing lifestyles of consumption.
It is well known that Americans consume far more natural resources and live much less sustainably than people from any other large country of the world. “A child born in the United States will create thirteen times as much ecological damage over the course of his or her lifetime than a child born in Brazil,” reports the Sierra Club’s Dave Tilford, adding that the average American will drain as many resources as 35 natives of India and consume 53 times more goods and services than someone from China. -Scientific American
The machine tells us that being consumers is a good thing. The problem though is the fact that as humans we tend to be really greedy. How would you know where the threshold for "too much" was if someone told you to consume your little heart out. Point blank, you wouldn't which is why we are caught up in the discussion of scarcity.
When God created the world he knew we would jack ish up. Although there are many parts of the earth where food cannot grow he made sure that we still had exactly what we needed. Emphasis on what we needed. Not all we could ever desire, not unlimited supplies of resources, but what we needed. The idea of scarcity in my opinion is very closely related to greed. If a small amount of people hoard much of the resources then that will create an illusion of scarcity. I say it's an illusion because it's not that those resources are not abundantly available in nature, it's that a handful of people have chosen to be greedy with them instead of figuring out a way to allow everyone basic access to what they need. Remember I said need. The lines between what we need and what we want have been blurred since... well it seems like forever. We talk about helping people in third world countries but how are we helping by continuing to hoard and consume? Then the funny part is we blame those same people for not being in a "better" position in life even though we have more than enough for everyone in the world to benefit from the Earth's resources.
If everyone in the world can't live up to the standard of the American Dream Scheme then why do we keep pushing this idea to people across the world?
Someone mentioned that it's nearly impossible to provide people with the things they need because of logistical reasons. With the technology that we have, if we can ship people around the world in aluminum tubes, we can definitely find a way to get people basic needs. Getting people basic needs hinges on being benevolent. The idea that there's no way it can be done is false. Resources can be moved. Think about it, if people can move sand from the bottom of the ocean to create man made islands or if fruits and vegetables can be shipped around the world with ease then why is there scarcity? We move resources everyday. Are we moving them with the notion that someone else is going to benefit or selfishly moving them so that 'I' can get something out of it? We're able to move European cars all around the world but somehow "can't" move food all around the world to end world hunger. I go back to my point of scarcity being an illusion because simply people are denied access to what they need. Not having enough money isn't the problem. Not having enough clothes isn't the problem. Access, access, and more access is what people lack and I feel this is an underlying problem when we talk about things being scarce.
Saying that there are not enough resources on earth is like saying God didn't provide and have foresight of what the earth would need to produce. It's a matter of how humans have decided to be poor stewards of what he gave us. If I can ship fancy cars (for profit) to a whole different country, but I can't ship food (non profit), maybe we should reevaluate our priorities. Us humans have come up with some pretty genius ways to get what we need. For example there is an interesting article I read about the food crisis in Egypt and how they are trying to find solutions to help the situation.
The human condition is a sad state of affairs as shown by our greed and lack of concern for the environment. There are a select few people who have most of the money and power to influence major world problems and the rest of the people struggle financially while having to figure out these same problems. Scarcity is manufactured by greed himself. As a matter of fact, he autographed it. No one wants to be benevolent to the next person and many people are too worried about securing personal wealth which is why some laugh at the idea of what The Venus Project is trying to accomplish. I am not saying that a resource based economy is the solution but it seems a heck of alot better than what we have now. But will people come up off of their trillions, billions, and millions to fund projects that will move mountains to benefit other people without wanting to make a profit? Idk, you tell me.
The point I'm trying to make in this post is that we have to start thinking about things differently as it pertains to this idea of scarcity. No,it's not just that there are areas of the world that are not fertile or places that don't have enough water. It's that there IS enough money, technology and abundant resources in the world to do something about providing people with a higher standard of living. The onus is on us to do with what we have not just to benefit ourselves but to benefit others even if that means I have to spend millions of my "hard earned money" for people to eat in other parts of the world.
Enough.
Get over yourself.
Well thought out post. We find that the underlying "problem" is complex once we scratch beyond the surface. Regrettably, most pundits push for simple solutions (and kudos to @humanearl for carefully avoiding this trap). My expectation is that any successful solutions must tackle the personal (what choices can I make to tackle this?) and the systemic (what elements of culture, government and media must change?) simultaneously in order to make measurable progress. If a large enough group of like-minded people were to work this together, there might be a chance.
Simple solutions don't take into account all of the nuances of major problems. I do however believe that we are more than capable of figuring out solutions. It's a matter of will we get in our own way.
Sure there is a thing called manufactured scarcity. One could say that the drought in California was natural. Could it really be natural when chemtrails cover the sky and the HAARP like programs shoot radio waves at these chemtrails to heat up the sky? So I have to believe that the drought was manufactured. When we have the so called elite want less of us around. They write it in their own Georgia Guide Stones. They only want 500 million people on earth. Well then we know why they want to cut off the water in California. They want our kids to get injected with heavy metals or they won't be able to go to school. They kill or blackball people that find ways to cure cancer. They kill people that know how to make a car go a 100 miles on a gallon of gas. They killed a man that had a car that could run an any water, even salt water, even urine. The elite even have to take young kids into there pedogate activities that may even cost those kids their lives.
God did give us seed of vegetation that would go on to the end of time. Then you have corporations that rape these seeds that can not go on. Farmers in India are committing suicide cause they can not make their farm work. It was these corporations that gave them seed that produces a harvest in which you can not use the seed from the harvest as it is now sterile. Yet the old man tells of memories of the old farmers that had enough. They would save the seed from harvest and start again. Instead of using these corporation's fertilizer they just gathered dung as they did for thousands of years. We must teach our kids to save the organic seed for if these corporations have there way they would destroy all the good seed. We must teach them how to plant the seed and harvest and eat that food and save the seed. Ever notice how they build new homes and the backyard is so small? They don't want you to plant gardens and eat of them. Yet in the Bible there is a scripture, Build ye houses, and dwell in them; and plant gardens, and eat the fruit of them; Jeremiah 29:5 The elite don't always have to win. Time for believers to bind evil spirits in Jesus name and loose angels of God in Jesus name.
Love your thoughts here. I believe this idea of scarcity, control, and stopping humans from progressing or bettering life for all is surely demonic. These are spiritual issues as much as anything. We are caretakers of the Earth and God has given us that responsibility.
Great post!
Thanks for taking the time to read it!
If we all only consumed what we needed and not what we thought we wanted.. all this material eventually loses its novelty and ends up in a landfill or in the oceans... all our water sources have trace particles of plastic we then ingest.
We live in large cities to have easy access to work and get paid to buy things we don't need, instead of working on ourselves.
I can't even imagine how damaging this would be to the earth (it already is) if everyone lived like Americans.
Scarcety, health chrisis, war, you name it. It is manifactured to make you pay your taxes.
Manufactured indeed.
I resteem it.
Thanks for that.
Materialistic Scare City is real!!
Unfortunately, very much so.
Great post! Scarcity and lack are lies. Poverty is a man made scourge that can/will be ended. :)
I too believe it can be ended.
There are abundant wind and solar energy.
Abundant energy everywhere. Even with all the massive areas of inhabitable places on earth there is still more than enough.
8 slices of pizza and 8 people. The chef takes 7 for himself and brings out the single last slice for the 7 others. "It seems we don't have much to go around".
This is basically the situation we are in.
The problems are systematic and spiritual in nature though. It's not that people don't want to be decent, they just can't conceive of a way to be decent because our system of exchange encourages and rewards competition and you are in danger of being taken advantage of when you work outside of that system. Most people are ready for a change, they just don't see that they themselves are it. Luckily many people here on steemit do.
Let's brainstorm ways forward :-D
Good point. Goes back to what I was saying about greed and how that's how it tends to be. And yes greed is very much so a spiritual issue. The cure for greed is a spiritual one as well because I really believe a person has to be spiritually transformed to be a truly decent person. Also the system is a BEAST. It will spit you up and chew you out if you try to operate outside of it which is unfortunate because that causes so much competition, stress, etc. This is why I'm here on steemit posting about certain ideals because I believe they are worth fighting and even dying for.