Quotes About Scarcity

But whether the amount of capital ever does limit the productiveness of industry, and thus fix a maximum which wages cannot exceed, it is evident that it is not from any scarcity of capital that the poverty of the masses in civilized countries proceeds. For not only do wages nowhere reach the limit fixed by the productiveness of industry, but wages are relatively the lowest where capital is most abundant.

The scarcity of the music not only makes the music itself enjoyable but it also gives the collector a strange sense of superiority.

Prices too that day indicated the state of affairs. The price of weapons, of gold, of carts and horses, kept rising, but the value of paper money and city articles kept falling, so that by midday there were instances of carters removing valuable goods, such as cloth, and receiving in payment a half of what they carted, while peasant horses were fetching five hundred rubles each, and furniture, mirrors, and bronzes were being given away for nothing.

In the morning we received some very thin coffee. For lunch we had potato soup with a few pieces of meat in it, in the evening we had a very thin meat soup with some potatoes in it.

The universe is continually at its work of restructuring itself at a higher, more complex, more elegant level. The novelty, the new, more complex order, doesn't emerge from the present in a steady stream, nor at all places at the same rate. It comes, as all things do, in rhythmic waves; there will always be times and places of scarcity and stagnation and retrogression. Still, the long-term direction is clear. The intention of the universe is evolution.

Half the world's rubber. c. Three-fourths the world's silk. d. One-third the world's coal. e. Two-thirds the world's crude oil. Is it not possible that there is some factor in our system that is responsible for this approach to a national plenty? Perhaps we think it is one thing when it really is something none of us identify. What is this "X" factor, this mystery factor? Is not a search for it advisable?

There is so much to groak; So little to groak from.

Scarcity appears when wealth cannot flow. Elsewhere

Out of bad faith comes a longing for control, for the law and the police. Bad faith suspects that the gift will not come back, that things won't work out, that there is a scarcity so great in the world that it will devour whatever gifts appear. In bad faith the circle is broken.

Though the moral onus for promoting war has made the munitions manufacturers the scapegoats, the fact is that the paper-profits of war equally enrich every other part of the national economy, even agriculture; for war, with its unparalleled consumption of goods, and its unparalleled wastes, temporarily overcomes the chronic defect of an expanding technology-'over-production.' War, by restoring scarcity, is necessary on classic capitalist terms to ensure profit.

In order to be a great marketer, you have to be focused and intense and look at scarcity, urgency, activity and passion in the marketplace.

If you have urgent current expenses to cover, then future priorities like college and retirement fall off your radar because they are simply less pressing. Scarcity of attention prevents us from seeing what's really important. The psychology of scarcity engrosses us in only our present needs.

Time is our ultimate scarcity. Isaac Newton can give us more electricity, but he can't give us more than 24 hours of the day of time. And so we're constantly having to sacrifice alternate activities to get the one that pleases us most.

If a commodity were in no way useful, - in other words, if it could in no way contribute to our gratification, - it would be destitute of exchangeable value, however scarce it might be, or whatever quantity of labour might be necessary to procure it.

In many cases, water stress is more about politics, economics, behaviour and governance than absolute water scarcity. Better planning is needed, to allocate water where societal need is greatest, and to allow trade-offs between alternative uses.

Since scarcity is the basic economic problem, if it does not exist then there is no reason for my economics course. Devoting time to the study of how people use limited resources to fulfill unlimited wants and needs should help us to discover how to best utilize the resources we have at our disposal.

It's illegitimate to talk about a post-scarcity Utopia without talking about questions of distribution. There have always been these Utopian predictions - 'electricity too cheap to meter' was the atomic promise of the 1950s.

It's harder and harder to find a spot within a day's drive of Los Angeles with enough vacant grass or even sand or dirt to stake a tent on.

Free is really, you know, the gift of Silicon Valley to the world. It's an economic force, it's a technical force. It's a deflationary force, if not handled right. It is abundance, as opposed to scarcity.

War is usually fought over diminishing resources, particulary those that we perceive to be extremely valuable.

The exchangeable value of all commodities, rises as the difficulties of their production increase.

Gold and silver, like other commodities, have an intrinsic value, which is not arbitrary, but is dependent on their scarcity, the quantity of labour bestowed in procuring them, and the value of the capital employed in the mines which produce them.

Instruments are a phenomenal investment, especially violins and violas and celli, because the value really doesn't go down, and it just rises up at incredible speed and has done, and I believe will continue to do so, because these rare instruments are not getting more. They are getting less and less through the years.

1) The availability of cheap slave labor in classical times supposedly discouraged innovation then, whereas high wages or labor scarcity now stimulate the search for technological solutions.