Why Chris Anderson has it wrong about scarcity and abundance
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Scarcity
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Abundance
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| Rules | Everything is forbidden unless it is permitted. | Everything is permitted unless it is forbidden. |
| Social model | Paternalism (“We know what’s best”) | Egalitarianism (“You know what’s best”) |
| Profit plan | Business model | We’ll figure it out |
| Decision process | Top-down | Bottom-up |
| Organizational structure | Command and control | Out of control |
- A reduction of scarcity in electrical energy would be far far more significant then storage capacity or computing power. Increased computing power may help lead to new inventions, new ways to grow crops, etc. but it does not provide the means to do those things. Even with a major reduction in the cost of electrical energy there would still be lots of other components in life which would be scarce. All things being equal… even if my energy costs were zero you’d still have the costs of labor, rent, etc. and those are of greater cost.
- Egalitarianism is “You know what’s best”? Since when? Every egalitarian philosophy and political theory is paternalistic in practice and often in theory. Egalitarianism is almost always collectivist and tends to remove responsibility from individuals for the supposed betterment of society.
- Ultimately, humans act because of scarcity. When combined with libertarian property rights you do have a “Everything is forbidden unless it is permitted” system, more or less. But that’s a good thing. History and analysis of human behavior shows that such a system leads to less conflict. Communistic, “Everything is permitted” as in “everything is everyones”, systems almost always fail due to conflict of interest and asymmetric desires which ultimately lower productivity and therefore per capita wealth.
- Private property theory and the free market, which exist due to scarcity, is bottom-up. There can never be a post scarcity scenario as described… only greatly reduced scarcity in particular areas of the economy. So if you have a free market the decision process will always be bottom-up and ordered chaos. Only statism is “top-down” and “command and control”in any significant manner.
- Craigslist and Wikipedia are not gift economies any more then this blog is or any other not for profit. Craigslist and Wikipedia actively request donations which is contrary to the fundamentals of a gift economy. Besides… they aren’t closed loops and therefore not an isolated economy but part of the greater world economy which is fascistic.
- Mr. Anderson makes several references to “waste.” That nature is wasteful. It isn’t. That YouTube is filled with “waste.” It isn’t. Waste is a subjective evaluation. Animals of simpler structure and lesser ability to protect offspring naturally play the statistics game. Those fit enough, ie those who produced more offspring thereby providing a greater chance of survival, have survived. There is no waste… just a different yet equally sufficient method of continuing the species. It is completely different for YouTube. There is no waste because it is what the customers desire. Only from another’s perspective can one’s property be considered ill used. He even makes mention of this fact yet still calls them ‘crap” and “waste.” It seems to me that he’s just being contradictive in his language and not intent but it’s frustrating none the less.
- He makes reference to the prime-time broadcast schedule being a scarce resource. That’s only because of government intervention. The FCC has held back radio technology since it’s inception. Rather then allowing the industry to run it’s natural course, much like the digital tech industry he likes to use in comparison, the FCC has regulated the life out of the industries using the radio spectrum. The cost of running a transmitter and even getting the basic equipment to film a TV or radio show isn’t that expensive. (And it would have been less so if it wasn’t regulated.) If individuals were free to transmit content as they saw fit and the government just enforced property rights regarding the homesteading of the radio frequencies there would have been more content and far lower “real costs.”
Seems to me Chris Anderson needs a lesson in economic theory. Appears his book is available for free. Perhaps when I’m done with a few other audiobooks I’ll check out his.
The most recent political book I’ve read is Cows, Pigs, Wars and Witches: The Riddles of Culture on loan from Blog of Bile’s very own xyz. It is a collection of short essays in the field of anthropology and sociology. Each essay attempts to shatter preconceived notions and explain in greater detail human actions which the author has deemed befuddling. Amongst the topics discussed are cows as sacred animals, pig lovers and haters, primitive warfare, the idea of an aggressive male, extreme consumption and extreme donation, cargo cults, a history of messiahs, the violent origins of Christianity, early witchcraft and witch trials, and the contemporary resurgence of disdain for objectivity.

