40+FAB Blog

I don’t claim to be an economist, but just like you, I did learn the law of supply and demand which explains the interaction between the sellers of a resource and the buyers for that resource. It seems that the more scare an item is, the more people are willing to pay for it.

So where does scarcity come from? Scarcity refers to a basic economic problem—the gap between limited resources and theoretically limitless wants. You might look at that definition and be concerned about the limits of resources available, however the real problem is the limitlessness of mans wants and desires.

On the site Prezi.com, a calculation was submitted of the total landmass in the world divided by the number of people alive today. The results revealed that each person could end up with at least 155 hectares of land. Yet, there are several conflicts all over the world today based on scarcity of land.

The resources that we need are more than enough for everyone and available to everyone, however the prevalence of wants and needs that ignore the welfare of all, create demands which eventually drive scarcity. A number of businesses and organisations are waking up to the need for ethics in thier operations, and we too must look at the bigger picture as we go about our day to day business.