I thought everyone would enjoy a recent correspondence I had with Kinsella. I wrote him as follows: How does the presence or absence of a good’s consumed physical space affect its scarcity? Non-scarce goods tend to consume no space but scarce good tend to. I can think of very few exceptions here …

Isn’t it strange that Hydrogen, the most abundant element in the universe, could be considered a scarce good under certain circumstances (fuel on a space-ship), while “good-ideas” are very rare and in demand, yet can’t be considered scarce. Maybe ideas are scarce in another way: human-brains are sc…

Interesting thoughts, and I largely agree. However, libertarians typically consider physical finity and economic scarcity to be two different things. So while there’s a finite number of human brains (or a finite amount of “human-brain matter”), one person’s “use” of a human brain doesn’t conflict w…

By the way, I don’t like that definition of non-scarcity either. I only use it to seque out of conventional defintions. For my own part, in my own belief, I don’t see that the real world offers any examples of non-scarce goods that are not infinitely replicable goods. I would would define non-scarci…

I think there is a serious problem with this even according to your own criteria. The confidence associated with a particular product is an inherent feature of the total product that cannot be replicated or duplicated. I cannot just go and tap into that reputation and attach it to another product …

The law of diminishing marginal utility says otherwise. It has value, certainly. But not economic value.

Hi Jeff: “Well, ice is just frozen water and water is certainly a scarce good. So is air.” I think this conception of things implicitly objectifies scarcity, conceiving scarcity as an objective quality of the things themselves, rather than conceiving scarcity as a feature of the attitude of the in…

I personally, kind of going along with Adam’s post above me, don’t really view anything as non-scarce. We are all subject to time, and as long as time is scarce, everything else will be as well. I can have all the ideas in the world, but I will only be able to have them for so long. I’m no professi…

I’m not sure that I really understand Adam’s post. on the issue of copyability, there is a clean division here. My words can be taken by you without removing them from me. Not so my shirt. This sums up the scarce/non-scarce distinction.

Ya, just in the end there will only be so many words you could have said. If we take scarcity as subjective to the actor, all things are scarce unless he is immortal. There’s only so many breaths a mortal can take, only so many ideas a mortal can think.

Hi Jeff: Perhaps. But you stopped short of saying “words are scarce/non-scarce” or “my words are scarce/non-scarce.” My point was that we can approach the concept of scarcity by methodological individualism and theoretical subjectivism. In this conception, whether your words are scarce to me or n…

Scarce and Non-scarce goods

Economics Economics Questions

adam_knott August 18, 2010, 2:08pm 31

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Scarce and Non-scarce goods

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