Most
scarce goods, including finite natural resources, are
For example, two people who each own the ingredients (
scarce goods) can simultaneously make a cake with the same recipe.
But the tragic dynamic they act out--in which love and success and approval are seen as
scarce goods for which women must compete to the death--is rooted in social, economic, and historical conditions this film never dares to examine.
The world wanted our
scarce goods, so we did not have to learn much about other cultures.
Serbia's economy has been destroyed by the war, by international sanctions and by well-connected gangsters, who derived huge profits from smuggling in gasoline and other proscribed commodities or from concerning the market on
scarce goods. They display their new riches ostentatiously in a country where a typical monthly pension roughly equals the cost of two eggs.
Similarly, sellers often allocate
scarce goods to steady customers when supplies are tight--rather than charge the customers higher prices--to reward and reinforce customer loyalty during downturns.
Hoppe also argues that externalities caused by one's property upon someone else's do not fall within the liability of the owner: Nobody can be the owner of the value or price of
scarce goods, which depend on the subjective valuations of other individuals.
Pay stands for the delivery of
scarce goods and services.
Users with excellent reputations gain access to
scarce goods.
Later, Marlowe more accurately describes buying as "a way of negotiating the competition for
scarce goods without physical violence." Buying can do that because the transaction is voluntary, meaning that both parties see themselves as benefitting from it.
Private property guarantees that
scarce goods will be put to their most efficient and productive uses.
Wealth is an economic concept that refers to something that can generate a stream of (some kind of) income, but property is a legal concept referring to the protection accorded the acquisition, use, and transfer of
scarce goods. Much of one's wealth as a merchant, for example, may be tied up in one's reputation or in an extensive network of contacts, but it is not clear that simply because they are forms of wealth that one's reputation (what others think of one) or one's network (the people whom one knows) can be considered to be property.