Of Time, Body, and Scarcity

Abstract

Scarcity is any natural or human insufficiency of resources that are objectively or subjec tively necessary to realize any given end valued by human beings. To the extent that human life and its ends are construed as materialistic, scarcity is intrinsic to human existence and is a fundamental problem for political science. Scarcity has been a salient issue for modern political theory because of modernity's heightened consciousness of mortality, which has made time and life themselves scarce. Modernity has sought compen sations through material abundance for the pain of life's scarcity and the conflicts engendered by that scarcity, though abundance itself has not solved the political problem. Basically, there are two policy options regarding material scarcity: increasing resource supplies and decreasing resource demands. Increasing supplies may be effective in the short run; but decreasing demand may be required in the long run, preferably by revaluing the ends of human life rather than by reducing freedom or opportunities for life itself.