Comic #2777: 2012-12-24
Description
"Scarcity"
“Economics,” said the fat man, “is the study of the allocation of scarce resources.”
The fat woman nodded.
“However,” he continued, searching through the papers on his desk for a particular one, “that is only a recent definition. In the past, economics has been the study of the allocation of very scarce resources.”
She nodded.
“Prior to that, it was extremely scarce resources.” At this point, he located a drawing of the descent of man. This drawing was unusual, in that at each evolutionary stage, the hominids were arguing with each other over something in the middle of them. “In fact,” he said, handing the image to her, “economics can be traced all the way back to a particular March in 1,332,014 B.C., during which a group of sapiens in sub-Saharan Africa had to divvy up a turnip. At that time, economics was defined as the study of the allocation of this one turnip.”
“How was it resolved?”
“Of course that is lost to history in its particulars,” he said. “However, there is reason to believe that it was resolved through the application of Newton’s Second Law, as embodied in a fist.”
“How primitive,” she said.
“Indeed. These would have been hominids too simple to make use of the laws of thermodynamics to resolve turnip disputes, much less the laws of relativity.”
She wrote this down. It appreciated this, and it moved him to go on.
“Now, the point here is this - the study of economics is the study of a moving target. It began as the study of how to allocate a few very rare things. Then it evolved into the theory of how to allocate a few moderately rare things. With the advent of the last century in 1900, it reached what can be considered an inflection point.”
“The post-scarcity society,” she ventured.
“Wrong!” he shouted, thrusting a finger into the air. “The entire last generation of econometricians made the selfsame mistake. No, don’t you see? If nothing is scarce, what is scarce?”
She hesitated. It was important to her that she not look foolish to the new boss. “Nothing?”
“Wrong! If there are no scarce resources, the only scarce resource is scarce resources.”
“I don’t follow.”
“If everyone has everything, the only thing scarce is something nobody else has.”
She nodded.
“We’ve already seen it in virtual goods. In an artificial universe, resource scarcity can be created for a relatively low price. But the fact that it is artificial ruins it. If the stray click of a key can generate infinity of something, it is not scarce in any real sense.”
She nodded again and crossed her legs.
“Don’t you see,” he said. “We’re sitting on a goldmine here!”
He reached into a desk drawer and pulled out a wooden box.
“What is it?” she asked.
He opened it. Inside was a bright red apple, leapt slightly chilled and moist by its container. Three evenly spaced drops of dew glistened on the yellow dapples near its stem.
“It’s an apple,” she said.
She indicated herself. He nodded. She grimaced, then put down her notepad. With a slight tremble, she reached out her right hand for the fruit. Its red skin was as flawless as the red lipstick she’d spent twenty minutes applying that morning. Her teeth pressed through its exterior into moist white meat. It was amazing.
She shivered with delight as she crushed the sweet flesh in her molars.
“Every single apple just like that one,” he said, grinning, “has just turned into maggots!”
She swallowed, eyes wide.
“We sold hundreds of them!” he said, standing from his chair and turning around to look out the window. “The cityscape was a gorgeous mass of glass and French curves. We sold nine hundred-ninety-nine, to be precise. But the buyers didn’t know! If you were wealthy enough, you’d be able to purchase this one maggot-free apple for a very high price.”
“I’m not sure people want this,” she said.
“Fah! Why, it’s already been tried in a number of rural experiments we’ve tracked. For example, diamonds are not a terribly rare creation of Nature. But their access was restricted and they became more popular than ever. Mind you, we can’t afford the necessary lawsuits to have a number of poor people killed whenever an apple is eaten, but this is the next best thing.”
“I see,” she said.
“And that’s not all! This box, in which the apple sits? It’s pure Canadian pine. When your pinky brushed against it just a moment ago, it released a pungent odor that has been carefully crafted.”
“That’s horrible!” she observed.
He smiled at her, but nevertheless rolled his attention to the wooden box, its mellow brown sinews expertly carved and sanded. She touched it for a second time. It was hard and just a little cold.
He smiled at her.
“But,” she said, still working through the implications. “Won’t the maggot-eaters be mad?”
“WRONG! They’ll be delighted! Mind you, not as delighted as the person eating the apple. BUT, these people will each have an experience only had by 998 other individuals.”
“I see,” she said slowly. “But then, you can’t mass produce these.”
“By definition, no. But we can produce more varieties. We have a prototype orange that turns into louts and a banana that begs for mercy when you eat it.”
He held up a white velvet box and opened it, exposing a small yellow fruit, which screamed “LET ME GO! I HAVE A FAMILY!” until he closed the container.
“If I may,” she said, “if I may, it seems that you’re mainly just introducing ugly things into people’s lives and then offering to take them away.”
“And that is the new economics, madame.” He smiled. “Take a note. Economics is the study of the creation of scare resources.”