Mark Carolus Posted October 7, 2013 Posted October 7, 2013 Ok, as Stefan and many others regularly say, human beings may not have infinite needs, but they do have infinite wants. While this is true, I feel this can not be a basis for society/the market, since infinite wants + 7 billion people = to much wants for to little resources. If wants are infinite, but resources for those wants are not, not all people will be able to get what they want. If county A, has 500 gold cars and 50000 inhabitants who all want a gold car, only the richest 500 can have a gold car, the others can not. Is this want morally justifiable? If you ask me, it isn't. What if I wanted to own the moon? would that be a morally justifiable want? What if I wanted to own Spain as a whole?
TheRobin Posted October 7, 2013 Posted October 7, 2013 Since you have to trade (i.e. GIVE something) to get what you want, it doesn't matter that there's more stuff you want than there is to get. Since you also can't give infitely, which means you have to prioritzie your wants, which means you can't consume whatever you want without anything holding you back. Also, wanting something isn't an action, so I don't see how morals come into play here, or how you define "moral" so that it can be applies to wants.
Wesley Posted October 7, 2013 Posted October 7, 2013 The price system is what helps people price out their wants. For instance, I may want a gold car, but not if it will cost me $500 million dollars. I could buy a couple homes and food for the rest of my life and I have 10,000 other wants that all take priority over the want of the gold car. Choice and price is all about making choices as to which wants are more important to you. Yes, my wants are technically infinite and I can never get everything that I would want, but this is not unfair in any way. The moon and Spain thing doesn't apply. you should look up the principles of homesteading. Also, anything I want to buy must have a seller who agrees on the price. This means that my acquiring property gives someone else money to buy something they want. Finally, any exchange makes everyone wealthier. If I want to buy your pen for a dollar, I must want the pen more than the dollar and you must want the dollar more than the pen or the exchange would not happen. This is axiomatic to the exchange.
PatrickC Posted October 7, 2013 Posted October 7, 2013 Two books I reccommend. One of which you can read in an afternoon, Henry Hazlitt's 'Economics in One Lesson'. If you want a more deeper understanding then I suggest Mises, 'Human Action', which is also available for free in audio format. http://mises.org/media.aspx?action=category&ID=139 You have to understand your criticisms (whilst understandable), have been answered on numerous occassions on this forum. I would suggest using the search option from the main index.
MrCapitalism Posted October 7, 2013 Posted October 7, 2013 "Wealth is Unlimited!" Just how much wealth is available? Imagine the total wealth in the world 2000 years ago. Did even the richest of the ancients have access to antibiotics, anesthetics, or surgery when their children had appendicitis? Could their entertainers give them the same quality, selection, and special effects that are now available on television? Could they find out about events on the other side of the globe a few minutes after they occurred? Could they "reach out and touch" family members who had migrated to faraway lands? Could they visit their distant relatives after a few hours in the "friendly skies"? Even the wealthiest of the ancients did not have many things we take for granted. A greater number of people than ever before now enjoy a lifestyle that our ancestors could not even imagine. Our wealth has increased greatly. Where did we get all this wealth? The earth certainly did not get an additional endowment of natural resources between ancient times and the present. Instead, we discovered new ways to use existing resources. Coal, oil, and natural gas give us an unprecedented amount of power. We transmit this power over electrical wires and send communications via satellite. The antibiotics produced by fungi have been harnessed to fight infectious bacteria that invade our bodies. We stimulate our immune system with vaccines so that the ancient plagues have all but vanished. Artificial wings fly us all over the globe. Mass production, assembly lines, and robotics help to replicate the wealth-creating ideas. The new wealth allows creation of still greater wealth. For example, the energy trapped in fossil fuels lets us create new metal alloys that require higher smelting temperatures than wood can provide. One idea leads to the next. We see that specific ideas on better uses for existing resources and the replication of these ideas are the real source of wealth. Natural resources are like seeds that grow into wealth when they are nurtured and developed by individuals acting alone or in concert. For example, oil was once considered a nuisance that contaminated good farmland. Not until enterprising individuals discovered how to pump, refine, and use it did oil turn into "black gold." Even water must be "developed" (drawn from a stream, well, or reservoir) before it can quench our thirst. The amount of wealth a country produces does not depend primarily on its endowment of natural resource "seeds." Japan has almost no mineral wealth, while Mexico is well endowed, yet the Japanese are certainly more affluent than the Mexicans.1 Similarly, North Korea is poorer than South Korea. (2) East Germany created much less wealth than West Germany before reunification in 1990.2,3 Obviously, resource endowment is not the primary factor that determines a country's wealth. Population density cannot be the dominating factor either: both Japan and West Germany have a greater population density than their poorer neighbors Mexico and East Germany. (3) When we consider that resources will one day be mined from planets other than the earth, that matter and energy are totally interchangeable, and that basic chemical elements can be transmuted, we realize that resource seeds are so abundant that they do not impose practical limitations on the creation of wealth at all. Even if our fossil fuels should be foolishly exhausted, for example, energy is abundantly available in each and every atom if only we knew as we one day will how to tap it safely. Even if we foolishly devastated our home world by unsound environmental management, a universe of other planets are available to us when we learn as we one day will how to reach them. Human resources, our "how to" ideas, and the replication of these ideas, determine how much available wealth there is at any one time. Since human creativity appears unbounded, the amount of wealth possible is virtually infinite! Truly we live in a "no limit" world!
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