The Tyranny of Scarcity

S & F!

This is a topic I consider important as well. Great quotes JPZ.

Of course you're going to see a bit of controversy on this one, but people need to get past the "obvious", and get on to the life-changing potential, and perhaps even the philosophical depth.

OK, so perhaps we should give a nod to a hierarchy of needs (Maslow), and concede that people who don't even have basic nutrition, need the basics before they can attempt higher levels. Obviously. Human history itself probably confirms this, depending upon what we believe, but people didn't begin thinking about building marble temples if their bellies were empty.

My personal experience echoes those of other posters who have also enjoyed some "success" in the world. We see clearly that our outlook on life does in fact determine much of this success, especially if we had to overcome former negative attitudes.

For me, I did everything I was told more or less, went to school, got the job, worked, got married, etc. The result? Massive dissatisfaction! Of course I wasn't making "enough" money, in spite of promotions and raises. In fact it was rather absurd for me to imagine that I "should" be making millions, as a mere employee!

BUT, I didn't inherit wealth, I was not the boss's son, I didn't go to an Ivy League school. Lack.

YES, that was "reality", but the biggest problem I had wasn't that I hadn't been handed the Golden Ticket. My problem stared back at me from the mirror!

No, I had not exactly got myself to where I was through laziness, or negligence, or stupidity. Quite the opposite, I could truthfully tell myself. And yet, what I did "inherit" were enough negative attitudes that were bound to hold me back, as long as I gave them power.

Interestingly, it was people like Tony Robbins that I started to tune in to. This was some years ago, but for a while, he seemed to be on many TV channels, and he shared his message. He wasn't alone. There was really an "abundance" of people out there saying that we needed to begin thinking differently to ever expect positive change.

I made some bold moves, and soon, I was self-employed. A few initial years were tough, but soon, I realized I was making far more money than I ever would have been making in the corporate world, as some mid-level manager or something. There was no magic involved, and yet it almost seemed "magical" that I could travel the world, and enjoy material things that were formerly far out of my reach.

Today, I try and share this notion that there is true, actual ABUNDANCE, in spite of constant messages that surround us that say completely the opposite. My grown children have the benefit of advice I never was given. In spite of an ugly economy, I remain "optimistic", because I have eyes to see "opportunity" literally everywhere. Of course, that opportunity was always there, I had just not always seen it before.

JR

I am sure others as well could point to impoverished peoples living very happily with what little they have, and at the same time point to others that would seem to have every luxury given them yet are quite unsatisfied and unfulfilled. What is too much or is too little can be highly subjective. While "have" and "want" are states of mind and suggest fulfillment or lack of, both conditions are useful if both can be experienced as required.

We can always find somewhere in the world, many places most likely, where there are those who lack basic sustenance through no apparent fault of their own. In those cases there may be a necessity for fulfilling a basic "need" but that would not be given much concern from those who chronically feel a lack of material self-fulfillment.

Rah, rah, ah, ah, ah. Roma, roma, ma. Gaga, oo, lala. Want your bad romance.
Lady Gaga

Not to detract from the original idea of the original post, just getting at that most people wouldn't or couldn't (I'm not sure which) get even 10% the value of any of the quotes from the original post. I don't believe it's at all a new thing, but most of society is happily blind attempting to live what mainstream society has rammed down their throats.

Edit: To clarify, not to think for themselves.

Thank you for this. As the key proponent here in ATS of the abundance paradigm, it thrilled me to read this thread.

For more about the abundance paradigm, please read my free book linked in my sig.

We need to break out of the scarcity/money-gripped/fear-gripped place we are in now and ACT to bring forth the abundance that this universe of ours DOES have to give.

reply to post by Xtraeme

The irony ... . The entire treatise I've put together is about abundance, what it would look like, and how to achieve it.

The irony is this: One cannot look at lack in order to find abundance. Hydrogen is the most abundant chemical in the universe. Oxygen is the third most abundant chemical in the universe. Two of the most essential elements necessary for life exist in abundance in the universe! This is observably so.

It's also why I get heated when people speak of "opportunity" as though it's something even starving children in third world nations just have to reach out and grab.

This gets to the heart of your pretension. It is very unlikely that children, let alone starving children, are members of this site, and yet you desperately want to frame this thread as some "warped...rose colored glasses" type message that all starving children have to do is change their minds about their situation. Children, whether they are starving or not, need nurturing. This is true of all children. If you are teaching children that it is naive to seek out opportunity and seize the day, then you are failing that child, and you can be sure that a child doesn't give a load of crap that you have read Marx/Engles, Sartre, Inglehart, Bronfenbrenner - whether it be Urie, or Martin -- Keynes, Minsky and Smith. What they care about is that they can trust you.

As a practical matter it means economic paradigms should be geared towards driving down nature imposed exigency as a priority. This would probably best be solved by setting up a paradigm where we define what's too much by what's too little.

Would you define abundance as "too much"? Certainly scarcity is too little. Of course, you are referring to an economic paradigm and while you hope to divorce yourself of the Marxist influence you yourself admit to owning, you appear to be advocating that "we" define what is too much and too little, and that someone, somewhere decide for everyone else what is enough and what is not enough. What do you offer as a method for this decision making process?

Of course implementing this requires some complicated math that involves bridging a fractional reserve system with 100% models (not easy). But it is a "practical answer!"

You offer complicated math and cannot resist placing quotation marks around your suggestion that such complication is a practical matter. It is telling indeed.

The title of this thread is The Tyranny of Scarcity. You have made the choice to enter this thread and pooh - pooh all over assertions that the universe is abundant, and most assuredly, and stubbornly so, cling to your smug attitude while advocating control methods that can only be handled by "complicated math". Tyrants and their sycophants tend to hide behind complication as a velvet curtain in hopes that everyone else will pay no attention to the man behind the curtain, and instead fear the Great and Powerful Oz who bellows that there are starving children in Africa!

Gee, if we only had a brain, only had a heart, and only had some courage....

Not to worry, surely you have some form of certification to grant us that brain, heart, and courage, and if not you then someone will decide for us all what is too much, and what is too little. Certainly, in your infinite wisdom, you have written a thesis on what abundance would look like and how to achieve it, as if abundance is something only humans can create. Hmmm, I wonder what human achieved the abundance of hydrogen, helium and oxygen in this universe?

reply to post by Jean Paul Zodeaux


Excellent thread and quotes Jean Paul Zodeaux, you are looking at the big picture here, interesting title in that scarcity is created by tyranny in my opinion, it is an illusion that most have bought into. We cannot look at this on a personal or local level in order to understand. Scarcity does not exist.

Just a side note, the Dale Carnegie course changed my life and way of thinking plus the actions I took as a result.



S&F

Originally posted by Jean Paul Zodeaux
reply to post by Xtraeme

 

You have made the choice to enter this thread and pooh - pooh all over assertions that the universe is abundant,

It would seem a great many fellow posters agree that there are certain base requirements, or perhaps you haven't noticed? As I said before, abundance is contingent on filling lack. The threshold, however, is subjective.

It's also why I get heated when people speak of "opportunity" as though it's something even starving children in third world nations just have to reach out and grab.

It is very unlikely that children, let alone starving children, are members of this site, and yet you desperately want to frame this thread as some "warped...rose colored glasses" type message that all starving children have to do is change their minds about their situation.

Either you drastically misunderstood what was written or you're intentionally obtuse. Earth has a finite and fixed amount of resources. This is empirical fact. You speak of the universe as though its treasures are available to us through some Quick-e-mart style drive-through. When in reality most of the materials are literally light-years away.

Bottom line every time you enjoy life as a good to be consumed in a material way someone else is deprived of a discrete, non-infinitely copyable object. Every time you receive a free new disposable toy you're imposing a negative externality on another human being. This abundance paradigm you're describing is a thinly veiled excuse for seizing non-infinitely copyable objects from others and doing so under a false and delusional pretense that others can have the same thing. Here's a tag-line for your philosophy: "Abundance for me, scarcity for you." How very morally upright. It would seem by your philosophy that the world's most vulnerable people don't even warrant consideration by virtue of the fact that their mere existence contradicts your thesis.

Gee, if we only had a brain, only had a heart, and only had some courage....

I doubt I could have said this any better myself. I'm sure it'll rain gold any minute now.

reply to post by Xtraeme

It would seem a great many fellow posters agree that there are certain base requirements, or perhaps you haven't noticed? As I said before, abundance is contingent on filling lack. The threshold, however, is subjective.

Having base requirements does not demand there be a lack of such requirements. The demand is in supplying those requirements, not in acknowledging any lack. Abundance is not contingent on filling lack any more than perfect teeth are contingent upon filling cavities. Filling cavities is contingent upon lack. Introducing nutrition to a starving body is contingent upon lack. Dosing a body with vitamin C to heal that body from scurvy is contingent upon lack. Abundance is not contingent upon lack. Abundance does not need lack in order to be abundance.

Either you drastically misunderstood what was written or you're intentionally obtuse. Earth has a finite and fixed amount of resources. This is empirical fact. You speak of the universe as though its treasures are available to us through some Quick-e-mart style drive-through. When in reality most of the materials are literally light-years away.

I speak to the abundance of the universe and you counter with the finite resources of Earth and then have the audacity to suggest I misunderstand or am being obtuse. You speak of both the Earth and the Universe as if its treasures are anywhere from hard to obtain, to impossibly hard to obtain, and why not? Your type have permeated public discourse since time immemorial, and it is your type who sought to suppress Galileo for advocating a heliocentric universe, and your type who offered ridicule and scorn to people like the Wright Brothers because they had the temerity to know that man could fly. Light years away you say? Do you honestly believe your approach advances us in our quest to travel at the speed of light and beyond?

The upward surge of humanity is not marked by people who followed the advice of people like you! The upward surge of humanity is marked by those who refused to be slaves to limitations, and dared to soar where eagles soar.

Bottom line every time you enjoy life as a good to be consumed in a material way someone else is deprived of a discrete, non-infinitely copyable object.

There you go again prattling on with your Marxist dogma, asking us to believe that what you have to offer is not at all Marxism. First of all, it is you and pretty much only you who has attempted to frame this thread as being some sort of materialistic screed of consumption. This has just not been the case, but this doesn't matter to you does it? You have your agenda, and that agenda is in defense of tyranny. You insist on pointing to lack as if you can, but in the end all you can do is point to famine, pestilence, or some "free disposable toy" all of which are observable, as opposed to the lack you pretend to be pointing to. You do this to castigate others not motivate. You do this to justify reasons why individuals must be regulated by some governing body with what you deem the correct world view, not to motivate others, and you have the audacity to suggest it is I who is being obtuse.

This abundance paradigm you're describing is a thinly veiled excuse for seizing non-infinitely copyable objects from others and doing so under a false and delusional pretense that others can have the same thing.

This is your world view, not mine, and it is you doing the imposing not I. You insist on denigrating life and the universe as being a plague in a place that people like you have been tasked with curing.

Here's a tag-line for your philosophy: "Abundance for me, scarcity for you." How very morally upright.

On the contrary, this is the tag line for your philosophy! I doubt there are few who would read this thread that would believe for a single second that you would eschew abundance while you desperately preach your dogma of scarcity. How very morally upright of you.

It would seem by your philosophy that the world's most vulnerable people don't even warrant consideration by virtue of the fact that their mere existence contradicts your thesis.

It seems this way to you, and what it seems to me is that it seems this way to you because what I advocate is a freedom to be what one chooses to be, and your smugness gets tiresome. Your efforts in this thread offer no demonstrable effort you've made on behalf of the world's most "vulnerable" people, and only demonstrates your tireless efforts at defending tyranny. For surely it is not freedom you are advocating, that would not do. In your world view freedom leads to too many "disposable toys" that "impose a negative on someone else", and it what you want is people like you to have control over those people you fear.

I doubt I could have said this any better myself. I'm sure it'll rain gold any minute now.

Uh-huh.

In fact, a neutrino shower could be beneficial to Earth. According to Carter this "star stuff" makes up the universe. "It literally makes things like gold, silver - all the heavy elements - even things like uranium....a star like Betelgeuse is instantly forming for us all sorts of heavy elements and atoms that our own Earth and our own bodies have from long past supernovi," said Carter.

www.huffingtonpost.com...

...Abundance is not contingent on filling lack...

this is really the heart of the matter, isnt it?

we have come to define life as "not dead". and from any practical perspective, this is as good of a definition as any.

but life does not exist as a mere opposition to death, no matter what the pragmatists say.

when you see a beautiful sunset, you do not experience it in terms of "not ugly".

unfortunately, death is a very compelling enforcer of scarcity. and that is its tyranny. but it is not all bad: we wouldnt be here to argue this if it werent for billions of years of evolutionary survival.

to describe existence merely in terms of scarcity is akin to denying the existence of a transcendent human soul. likewise, in order to transcend mechanical reality, you must deny scarcity its power.


@Xtraeme: would you deny that child his very soul?


great presentation, JPZ.

reply to post by tgidkp

when you see a beautiful sunset, you do not experience it in terms of "not ugly".

I have been sitting in Starbuck's today, using their free wifi to do my work while periodically posting here in ATS. While I was constructing my last post, a friend who was sitting next to me was aware of this debate, and asked me why I bother? I just showed him your post and let that serve as my answer as to why I bother.

I hold no illusions that I will change the stubborn mind. What I do understand is that this is a debate worth holding and that by having it, brilliant ideas and images come into play. Thank you, my friend for your wonderful contribution to this thread.

reply to post by Jean Paul Zodeaux


Well you have to understand that we live in an age where extortion= capitalism(I prefer a more Calvinistic Capitalism when I do business stuff). Buy as cheaply as you can regardless of it's real worth, sell as high as you can regardless of it's real worth.

That is the main cause of this depression. Everyone wants to get rich quick instead of just earning their keep and living.

The reality of life is that life is hard. It is, in a very simplistic sense, much like going to the gym and lifting weights. When one begins to lift weights they can only lift what they can lift, and that amount of weight is difficult to lift. However, as that person continues to work a regimented set of repetitions that amount of weight becomes easier and easier to lift. This is when it is time to add more weights to the regimen. In effect, if someone expects to accomplish anything in lifting weights then the exercise of doing so has to remain difficult, otherwise that persons reaches a plateau and no one ever remains at a plateau for

How come some people seem to fare better in the face of adversity than others? How come some businesses manage to scrape by while others in the same field just wither and die? The difference may come down to your mindset, or, dare I say, your attitude when faced with a challenge. Your biggest problem may not be the problem itself as much as it is what you tell yourself about it.

too long, we either go in one direction or the other. We either expand or we contract.

It is the attitude we adopt going into a project or exercise that dictates how that project or exercise will turn out. There will always be unexpected roadblocks and hiccups along the way, and even the expected roadblocks and hiccups will be difficult because...well, life is hard. This is not something to lament, but something to celebrate. Easy games are not much fun.

How come some people seem to fare better in the face of adversity than others? How come some businesses manage to scrape by while others in the same field just wither and die? The difference may come down to your mindset, or, dare I say, your attitude when faced with a challenge. Your biggest problem may not be the problem itself as much as it is what you tell yourself about it.

www.huffingtonpost.com...

This article pertains to an author, Russel Bishop who wrote Workarounds That Work. In preparing this book, Bishop explains that he interviewed an entrepreneur, Irwin Carasso, who offered this:

"The very nature of labeling something as a problem automatically sets it up as a block to going forward in a number of ways. I always chose to look at problems more like puzzles and had fun finding a more creative way to deal with them."

Even if one does view it as a problem, mathematicians deal with problems on a daily basis, but when dealing with a math problem, it is never in doubt that there is a correct answer, and the game is finding that correct answer.