So what surmountable scarcity exists today?
 Slums built on swamp land near a garbage dump in Jakarta  Collecting water in Mwamanongu Village, Tanzania 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
- High quality, interesting education
- Safe and efficient transportation 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
- 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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