SCARCITY, ABUNDANCE AND SUFFICIENCY - GUPEA

316 Pages·2011·6.47 MB·English

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ISBN: 978-91-979397-1-3 1
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Scarcity, Abundance, and Sufficiency
Contributions to Social and Economic Theory

Adel Daoud

Göteborg Studies in Sociology No 46
Distributed by:
Adel Daoud
Department of Sociology
Univerisity of Gothenburg
Box 720
SE 405 30 Gothenburg
Sweden
E-mail: [email protected]

Scarcity, Abundance, and Sufficiency – Contributions to social and economic theory
Author: Adel Daoud
ISBN: 978-91-979397-1-3
ISSN: 1650-4313
© 2011 Adel Daoud

Cover: Geson Hyltetryck
Photo: Johan Söderberg & Adel Daoud
Print: Geson Hylte Tryck, Göteborg2011.

Göteborg Studies in Sociology No 46.
Department of Sociology, University of Gothenburg
ABSTRACT
Title: Scarcity, Abundance, and Sufficiency: Contributions to Social and Eco-
nomic Theory.
Written in English, summary in Swedish, 207 pages.
Author: Adel Daoud
Doctoral Dissertation at the Department of Sociology, University of Gothenburg
Box 720, SE 40530 Göteborg, Sweden
ISBN: 978-91-979397-1-3
ISSN: 1650-4313
Göteborg 2011

Economic sociology has established itself as a strong and vibrant field in the
social sciences. A number of significant studies have been conducted on the
relation between the economy and society: on firms, markets, networks, money,
and general action theory. But little has been done on the issues of scarcity,
abundance, and sufficiency (SAS). Both economical and sociological approaches
seem to assume scarcity as an important premise. But none seems to question the
deeper nature of it. The SAS theme seems to be analytically underdeveloped in
both disciplines.
This thesis aims to explore an alternative ground for critical economic soci-
ology or more generally for social and economic theory. Instead of focusing on
the problems of rational choice, which a number of sociological studies have
done, the thesis starts even earlier in the set of assumptions that condition human
agency, it focuses on the premise of scarcity. The central question posed is:
’What is the nature of SAS in social and economic theory?’ Five studies have
been carried out in order to answer this question. These studies focus on quite
divergent empirical fields – famine, voluntary simplicity, and educational choice
– in order to explore the varying importance of the sociocultural mechanisms
underlying SAS.
Paper I deals with absolute SAS and the assumption of universal scarcity in
neoclassical economics. A critical examination of this assumption is conducted
by studying the empirical phenomenon of global hunger in relation to a theoreti-
cal elaboration of SAS. It also proposes a framework for explaining and under-
standing absolute SAS.
Paper II further tests the framework developed in Paper I. The food entitle-
ment decline and the food availability decline are commonly seen as conflicting
approaches to explaining famine. The paper analyses the relation between these
two approaches and argues that these approaches can in fact be reconciled under
one framework by outlining their causal sources. This analysis also shows that
there is a third causal source that needs to be incorporated with the other two
approaches. The whole analysis is exemplified by the Bengal Famine of 1943.
Paper III focuses on relative SAS. It studies how voluntary material simplic-
ity countervails the causal effect of relative scarcity generated by the environ-
ment of a consumer society. Analyses of both interviews and texts were carried
out. It is shown that voluntary material simplifiers manage, though with diffi-
culty, to neutralize the causal effect of the consumer society. This is achieved by
mediating the cultural properties of the economic ethic of material simplicity,
which promotes the deflation of human wants. They actualize what has been
called the modus vivendi of material simplicity, a practical state of relative
abundance.
The aim of Paper IV is to study the formation of wants based on interviews
with upper secondary school pupils. The paper shows that an organic view of
decision-making is in better accordance with observations than is a hierarchical
view and thus supports previous research claiming that pragmatic rationality
(based on habitus and reflexivity) plays a more important role in students’ deci-
sion-making processes than does instrumental rationally.
Paper V compares two classical economists and their views on scarcity,
namely Thomas Malthus (1766-1834) and Lionel Robbins (1898-1984). How-
ever, both scholars’ views tend to naturalize and universalize scarcity, and thus
to overlook abundance and sufficiency, which are important states in the social
provisioning process. It is argued that this is due to neglect of the sociocultural
causal underpinnings of SAS.
Hence, the thesis offers three main contributions to social and economic the-
ory in general: (1) a tentative typology of SAS; (2) a holistic (multi-casual) ex-
planatory approach to SAS; and (3) an alternative foundation for social and eco-
nomic theory, based on what has been called the SAS theme. It is shown that this
theme contains various socioeconomic phenomena that are intimately linked to
SAS (famine, want, property, market, justice, poverty, action, conflict, etc.),
which then set the stage for new kinds of socioeconomic inquiries as well as new
relationships between existing ones. Hopefully, this will enable an even deeper
understanding of how SAS conditions social and economic life.
To my parents – for their unconditional love.

Contents
Acknowledgments 1
Frequently used abbreviations 5
Introduction 7
Background 11
Problem 1. The effects of SAS 12
The neoclassical perspective on scarcity: problem 2, efficient allocation 13
The function of scarcity in economic theory 16
Heterodox economists on abundance and sufficiency: the internal critique 22
Problem 3. The universalization of scarcity 22
Problem 4. The limits to growth 24
Problem 5. The assemblage of resources 26
Sociological perspectives on scarcity: the external critique 27
Problem 6. The foundations of the social sciences 28
Problem 7. The origins of human wants 30
Problem 8. The nature of SAS 32
Research problems and demarcation 35
Results and discussion: the five papers 39
Paper I 42
Paper II 43
Paper III 45
Paper IV 48
Paper V 51
Summary 52
Contributions 53
Sammanfattning på svenska: summary in Swedish 59
References 65
Figures and tables

Figure 1 Crusoe’s preferred consumption choice in a situation scarcity. ........... 18
Figure 2 Production possibilities frontier and scarcity ....................................... 21
Table 1 Overview of the five papers ................................................................... 40