Existing scarcity

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So what surmountable scarcity exists today?

Slums built on swamp land near a garbage dump in Jakarta
Collecting water in Mwamanongu Village, Tanzania
Pharmaceuticals, which are kept artificially scarce by commercial pricing

All the usual suspects, and a lot applies as much to Western countries as it does to the developing world.

  • Clean energy
  • Clean water
  • Nutritious food
  • Medicine and medical facilities
  • Decent housing in slum areas
  • Sustainable development 11px-Wikipedia_logo.jpg
  • High quality, interesting education
  • Safe and efficient transport that doesn't kill or maim significant numbers of passengers or contribute to changing our climate
  • The facilities for people and communities to do more things for themselves - we are too reliant on machines and products from big business. Most people are not in a situation where they can even keep themselves alive when cut off from the products of centralized production, and this leads to unnecessary deaths and suffering when these services are disrupted in disasters
  • Resources to get things done that need to be done - at a community level — sounds woolly perhaps but covers uncountable worthy projects that simply don't get done through lack of funds, manpower or bureaucratic hurdles
  • Quality - quality products and architecture as examples.
  • Time - people's time. Time to follow things important to the individual. Time for other people.

Causes

  • Lack of appropriate technology
  • Locked-up resources
  • Short-term thinking
  • Inadequate co-operation (lack of communication and sharing of knowledge)
  • Self-interest (at many levels)
  • Cultural inertia (that's the way it has always been done)
  • Lack of trust
  • Ignorance (lack of education or understanding)
  • Incompetent government administration
  • Bureaucracy
  • War
  • and in no small part, monetary economics

See also

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