Chapter 1.4 – The fundamental assumption of scarcity

Excerpt from the book »Gradido – Natural Economy of Life«

»Economics is the study of how society manages its scarce resources.«

        – N. Gregory Mankiw

Principles of Economics

From the zero-sum dogma follows the fundamental assumption that there is not enough for everyone - the fundamental assumption of scarcity. Economics is often defined as the »study  of the distribution of scarce resources«. What is a fundamental assumption? In scientific works it is common practice to start with fundamental assumptions. They are conditions which are assumed to be universally valid. If the fundamental assumption is correct, we can build up theories on them and draw important conclusions. However, if the fundamental assumption turns out to be wrong, the whole construct of ideas collapses like a house of cards.

A popular method of making the fundamental assumption of scarcity appear plausible to us is to appeal to our greed. Wishes for things that nobody needs are suggested to us. A Ferrari, a Rolex watch, a mansion with a swimming pool… – such things are after all quite nice and of course not everybody can own them. But are they worth building a dogma on that is the reason for 24,000 people starving every day? Do they justify this mass murder?

It is even worse than that: to stop the construct of ideas in economics collapsing completely scarcity has to be maintained by every means possible – if need be, with violence. Many goods that were available in abundance in nature are made artificially scarce.

Drinking water

Natural streams are piped into the drainage system. Air and soil are contaminated with chemicals so that springs are polluted with toxins. That is the reason why fewer and fewer springs supply drinking water. In addition, the water table is continuing to sink because of unnatural farming methods and the soil is corroding. Public water supplies are being sold with cross-border leasing (e.g. from Germany to the USA) and then have to be leased back again.

Land

More and more land is being concreted over. The rain forest is being cut down. Remaining areas of farmland are being used for bio-fuel production and are no longer available for growing food.

Seeds

Seeds created by nature are being destroyed by genetic manipulation and transformed into so-called »terminator seeds«. The seeds of the plants which germinate from them are themselves no longer capable of germinating.

Food

The above-mentioned points all already lead to an artificial shortage of food. It is suggested to us that feeding the world can only be assured with chemicals and so-called »green technology« (genetic technology). The opposite is the case. And so it goes on and on…

Bee colony collapse disorder

At present more and more bees are dying from an unknown disease. Without bees there can be no natural pollination of flowers and hence no natural fruits or natural reproduction of plants. We should not be surprised if the genetic industry promises us further high-priced “green technology” solutions.

Factory farming

Excessive consumption of animal products (meat, milk, eggs, etc.) not only causes inconceivable suffering for the animals concerned. Factory farming also causes far greater pollution of the environment that all cars together. In general, the production of animal products uses many times more resources, such as water and energy, than plant food with equal or better nutritional value. With food of mainly plant origin we could feed over thirty times as many people and in addition they would have a more varied, tasty and healthy diet.

Energy

Instead of supporting research into and development of really alternative and environmentally friendly sources of energy, the scarcity of oil is used as a pretext for wasting valuable farming land for growing bio-fuel and cutting down additional precious rain forest.

Air

Apropos rain forests – they are the earth’s green lungs! What happens when an organism’s lungs are destroyed? It suffocates, doesn’t it? By cutting down the rain forests we risk suffocating ourselves. In addition, there are the waste gases from industry, traffic and factory farming.

We could cite many more examples. However, it is not a question of completeness but of making the principle clear.

Let’s make a summary again: 

• The zero-sum dogma is contrary to nature. Living nature visible to us is always positive.
• The zero-sum dogma results in exploitation, both of nature and our fellowmen.
• The fundamental assumption of scarcity leads to a theory of economics opposed to nature, whose supporters do not shrink from making virtually all goods of daily life artificially scarce.

advantage 48 – Healthy organic vegetable food

Excerpt from the book »Gradido – Natural Economy of Life«

»As long as there are slaughter houses

there will always be battlefields.«

– Leo Tolstoy

Russian writer

The earth can produce enough food for everyone – but not with three meals of meat a day. Today’s factory farming is an atrocious crime against living nature. The animals are tormented during their lives and slaughtered in a barbaric way. One meal of meat requires over thirty times the resources needed for a comparable vegetable meal. Factory farming is considered to be one of the greatest environmental sinners, even coming before emissions from industry and cars.

Vegan meals completely without animal products can be prepared in at least as tasty and varied a way as other meals. Everything indicates that a vegan diet is considerably healthier than an animal-based diet.

It is not our wish to re-educate everybody to become vegans. But when more and more tasty vegetable food is provided in our shops and restaurants, we will automatically eat fewer animal products. Instead of eating meat twice a day, we perhaps eat meat only twice a month. In this way we reduce our meat consumption to a thirtieth of the amount, without having to forgo culinary pleasures. On the contrary, our diet becomes more varied and much healthier.

Here we also follow the threefold good – more pleasure and health for individuals, sufficient food for all people with less ecological damage and less animal suffering. 

Nowadays there are tasty vegetable alternatives to almost all meat and milk products, such as vegan sausages and steaks and soya, rice and hemp milk. They may not taste exactly the same as animal products but they may even taste better and there is something for every taste.

And what about butchers? Will they have to cease doing business? Absolutely not! The fine art of butchers consists in making tasty meat from meat that does not originally taste so good. The same skill is required for producing tasty vegan steaks or sausages; only the basic ingredients are different. The butcher can continue to exist without any problems. I can even imagine that the first vegan butcher in a city will do very good business.

Vegetable food can be grown in sufficient quantities and biological quality everywhere in the world. For this we do not need either chemical fertilisers or genetic engineering. Organic farmers and permaculture farmers show that it is possible. The best food is produced locally and one side-effect is that less transport is needed. It may happen that large concerns can no longer earn so much money but, in turn, they will be supported in developing eco-friendly products and services by the Equalisation and Environment Fund. Farmers and small farmers will likewise be supported in growing organic food regionally. 

Advantage 53 – The solution to the problem of world hunger

Excerpt from the book »Gradido – Natural Economy of Life« 

»World agriculture could feed 12 billion without any problem.

That means that a child that dies of starvation today is murdered.«

– Jean Ziegler

from “We Feed the World”

Feeding the world population is not a technological problem but once again an economic one, resulting from the market logic of the old monetary and economic systems. As we saw in advantage 48, we can supply entire humankind with high-quality organic food. This food will be mainly from vegetables as their production needs only a thirtieth of the resources necessary for animal food. Since the consumption of too much animal food is the cause of most lifestyle diseases in civilised countries, we will also get healthier as a side-effect.

Organic cultivation of fruit and vegetables is possible everywhere in the world, even in desert regions. Permaculture provides successful examples of this. In general, vegetable dishes are much tastier than animal ones. The culinary diversity is significantly greater and for people who enjoy meat there are now excellent vegetarian substitutes that taste delicious. Vegan steaks, sausages, soya milk and much more make the changeover a pleasure. We do not propose banning meat consumption but merely recommend offering an increasing number of vegetarian dishes in shops and restaurants – a trend which fortunately is already noticeable.

For the 24,000 people who die of starvation every day on average and the many million people who survive but suffer from hunger the question of taste is of minor importance. At most, religious laws play a part. There are religions that prohibit the consumption of meat but vegetable food is permitted everywhere.

The more the so-called civilised world reduces meat consumption, which is unhealthy anyway, the more prosperity is possible for all of us and the sooner there will be peace. Then nobody will have to suffer hunger or thirst anymore.