• Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Food is not scarce. Rising food prices are not because of food scarcity. Milk hasn’t nearly doubled in price in the past two years because of a scarcity of dairy cows.

    • MenKlash@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      Food is not scarce.

      Food is not a superabundant resource. If it was, then the ends it satisfies would already have been attained, and there would be no need for action. Resources that are superabundant no longer function as means, because they are no longer objects of action.

      An example of an actual superabundant resource is the air:

      “Thus, air is indispensable to life and hence to the attainment of goals; however, air being superabundant is not an object of action and therefore cannot be considered a means, but rather what Mises called a “general condition of human welfare.” Where air is not superabundant, it may become an object of action, for example, where cool air is desired and warm air is transformed through air conditioning.”

      Rising food prices are not because of food scarcity.

      Of course. Rising the price of something could be caused by a lot of things. However, we should differentiate a change of the price caused by voluntary exchange of it caused by institutional coercion.

      Milk hasn’t nearly doubled in price in the past two years because of a scarcity of dairy cows.

      Descriptive economics is not the same as explanatory economics.