The Fundamental Economic Problem

The ‘science’ of economics claims the Fundamental Economic Problem is how to allocate scarce resources.  With just a bit of reflection, one can quickly see this cannot be true in today’s society.  Workers aren’t scarce – there’s billions of them across the planet desperate for a job.  Agricultural products aren’t scarce – there’s so much that governments spend billions in subsidies.  Businesses know their products aren’t scarce – they can produce vastly more than can be bought and they spend hundreds of billions in advertising desperately trying to convince us to spend.

We don’t read in the papers how horrible it is that the crisis is causing reduced production of potato chips or bubble gum.  We don’t care because we know in our hearts that the production problem has been solved and is no longer the issue.  JK Galbraith was right decades ago – unemployment is the central question, not production.

Economists who claim the problem is scarcity expose themselves as holders of views that should have been put to rest long ago.  They are no more than the high priests for a dysfunctional socio economic system.