Theorizing Scarcity: Neoclassical Economics and its Critics

This article critically examines the neoclassical approach to scarcity as well as critiques of neoclassical economics that focus either on the formation of people's wants (the demand side of scarcity) or on the production and distribution of the goods needed to satisfy these wants (the supply side). I argue that critiques of the neoclassical approach are right to emphasize the relationship between the determinants of scarcity and the economic system as a whole but are less convincing when they project the possibility of overcoming neoclassical scarcity altogether.