Abundance Theory Economics

[ebacon]

Originally Posted by finnbow

Like all other economic theories, there's a shred of truth to all of them, yet rarely more than a shred.

Abundance is more than a theory. It is the underpinning of changes to our laws and international trade agreements since the 1960s.

[finnbow]

Originally Posted by ebacon

Abundance is more than a theory. It is the underpinning of changes to our laws and international trade agreements since the 1960s.

OK, but things that are seemingly abundant at one moment can become scarce (e.g., corn in the current drought). Does a sense of abundance drive policy? Sure (i.e.,the corn ethanol program). However, I'm still not sure that this makes "abundance" a coherent economic theory (if there even is such a thing).

[ebacon]

Originally Posted by finnbow

OK, but things that are seemingly abundant at one moment can become scarce (e.g., corn in the current drought). Does a sense of abundance drive policy? Sure (i.e.,the corn ethanol program). However, I'm still not sure that this makes "abundance" a coherent economic theory (if there even is such a thing).

Drought and natural disasters are not part of macroeconomic theories.

Abundance theory is much simpler. Suppose an economy needs four things, food, clothing, housing, and defense. A trivialized implementation of abundance theory would say that it doesn't matter if we remove all well paying jobs from the clothing and food sectors. After all the workers will invent work elsewhere.

What might happen in that scenario?

[finnbow]

Originally Posted by ebacon

Drought and natural disasters are not part of macroeconomic theories.

Abundance theory is much simpler. Suppose an economy needs four things, food, clothing, housing, and defense. A trivialized implementation of abundance theory would say that it doesn't matter if we remove all well paying jobs from the clothing and food sectors. After all the workers will invent work elsewhere.

What might happen in that scenario?

... and therein lies the problem with a lot of economic theory - detachment from reality and an inability to deal effectively with all the relevant input variables.