“An economic system consists of all of the ways a nation or society uses limited resources to satisfy its people’s unlimited wants and needs. Scarcity forces nations to make tough choices. As a result, every country has to answer three basic economic questions: What goods and services will be produced? How will those goods and services be produced? For whom will they be produced? (p. 17)”
I have heard faith leaders working to end poverty say repeatedly that they come from a religiously based, philosophical assumption of abundance. God provides abundantly for God’s people. Certainly abundantly enough to meet the basic needs of all people, even if not to provide for every want. “Now to [God], who by the power at work within us is able to accomplish abundantly far more than we can ask or imagine, to [God] be glory” (Ephesians 3:20-21).
I never realized just how radical this was until reading about the economically based, philosophical assumption of scarcity that pervades the very opening lines of an introductory economics text. Abundance, as espoused by the divinely inspired anti-poverty activists, is directly contrary to the philosophical foundation of economics! Now that’s sounding pretty radical!
Economics assumes scarcity. And scarcity teaches us that there is never enough to go around; we are always confronted with “tough choices.” Scarcity teaches the sanctity of private property. If there is never enough to go around, every person had better hold tightly to what they’ve got. Scarcity teaches judgment. Any person who is not judged to be contributing to our collective (and paradoxically individual at the same time) war against scarcity deserves nothing.
But if we assume abundance, that there is always more than enough to go around, then there is no need for punitive or blaming economic/social systems. There’s only need for sharing and love and other religion-y virtues. An assumption of abundance dramatically changes the answers to the “three basic economic questions.” What goods and services will be produced? At least enough to meet everyone’s basic needs. How will those goods and services be produced? Equitably and with dignity. For whom will they be produced? For all of God’s creation, of course.
Now, there are plenty of ways to rationalize the scarcity worldview. Scarcity can make us ambitious, industrious, creative. Individual interest in private gain creates Adam Smith’s mysterious and miraculous “invisible hand” which has molded a system of efficiency and prosperity, not to mention cooperation and interdependency beyond that seen in any utopian society supposedly guided by principles of “sharing and love.” Even God would know better than to spoil creation by providing too abundantly, right?
So scarcity makes us punitive, but it makes us productive. Abundance makes us sympathetic, but it makes us sluggish. In what, then, should we trust? In an invisible God or in an invisible hand? Are good things scarce, or are they abundant, and which would we actually prefer?
Perhaps the crux of our confusion is in yet another assumption. To return to the introductory declaration of our introductory economics text: “An economic system consists of all of the ways a nation or society uses limited resources to satisfy its people’s unlimited wants and needs.” Unlimited wants and needs. Any parent can tell you that wants and needs are two fantastically different things. To satisfy a child’s every want is a) impossible and b) not very good for the mental health of either child or parent. But to satisfy a child’s every need is a) hopefully possible and b) fundamental to being a parent. In social law, we recognize a distinction between want and need, and call it criminal when parents don’t provide the latter for their children. So why wouldn’t economics make the same distinction? “Unlimited” really only applies to wants. Needs are pretty darn stable, limited by biology and broad, slow to adapt social conditions. (Admittedly, no one needed electricity before the grid was invented, but we have much less need today for candle wax and fire wood!) So if needs are limited, then abundance is possible. Our insatiable wants, however, will always require ingenuity, ambition and effort.
The hard, cold fact is that abundance does exist to cover needs. There are enough square feet and enough calories to adequately house and feed everyone in this country.* Couldn’t we loosen our grip on the scarcity doctrine enough to recognize this abundance and make basic needs a human right? The methods, of course, can and should be fiercely debated—redistribution, social control on industry, some more creative options we haven’t thought of yet… But if God is working through us to accomplish abundantly far more than we can even ask or imagine, can’t we imagine this?
*There’s enough food to feed everyone in the world!
Downey, Matthew. Contemporary’s Economics.
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