Scarcity is an important concept to understand in economics. This idea is often overlooked in discussions on politics and finance but its importance cannot be overstated. Aristotle is thought to have written the Economics “Οἰκονομικά” which translates more literally to the “law of the house”. The word derives from the Greek “οἶκος” (oikos) meaning house and “νομικός” (nomikos) meaning law. The question you should be asking yourself is what does the “law of the house” have to do with “economics”?
The concept of a household is a microcosm for the concept of statehood. In the face of scarcity, historically it became necessary to manage resources properly in order to make sure there were not periods where there was too much lack and other periods of waste. Moderation was considered a virtue that brought εὐδαιμονία (eudaimonia) which is often translated as “welfare” or “being well equipped” as Robert Schmidt would say.
Our unique ability to see what could be causes us often times to not live in the present. The difference between what is and what could be creates desires and our senses notice absence. Humans seem to suffer from this disparity more so than the rest of the animal kingdom.
Scarcity is a very important property for currency to have because without it, that currency cannot become a good store of value (SOV). When something is ever present, its use for trade becomes obsolete. Trade is the measurement of the scarcity of one object in comparison to another.
Then something happened to corrupt the proper management of resources in the last century. Moderation and modesty were no longer considered virtues. Instead the “cult of the self” and the aggrandizement of ego along with the idea of “consumption as a form of inner compulsion” (Edward Bernays) were instilled as values by corporate culture.
In the previous century, everything was getting cheaper in the USA because the value of the dollar increased which encouraged saving. The reverse started to happen in the early 20th century. The increasing supply of dollars caused the value to fall which meant that it was more profitable to spend that money than to save it. From there, we increasingly became a nation of debtors and eventually that turned money into a system of control.
Now there is finally an exit from this system of money as a system of law enforcement. It seeks to use the scarcity principle to enforce obedience to authority. Bitcoin was the first attempt at disintermediating authority by making them obsolete which has the potential to give freedom back to the people.
Remember Star Trek had something called a “replicator” that was based upon transporter technology? What value would money have if there’s never any reason to trade?
If you're in this for the profits you're missing the point. Using this as a ticket for getting rich is not why this technology was created. This technology is about ridding the world of the false scarcity used to empower the few. One day, there will be no more use for any money whatsoever. It's a byproduct of our inability to accept the present.
But the world is trapped in the paradigm of unlimited money for the few and scarcity for everyone else. Until that bond is broken, it will be next to impossible for humanity to grow. The next step is to create fair scarcity which will create balance. After that, nanotechnology will make money meaningless when replicators can reshape matter into any form.
In the past, authority erected borders as a means of control. This is because physical travel is one of the closest sensations to the concept of freedom that we have. The internet and it's child cryptocurrency are beginning to invert this process. First, it caused the phenomena of fake news and reality TV. Then fake news will become fake money. Eventually physical travel will become indistinguishable from holographic alteration of reality.
We will one day look back on this current era and see it as a period of great darkness that we survived.
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