Production capacity is a finite resource, whether it be for economic (e.g., it's not profitable) or for social (e.g., few people can or will) reasons. The idea that artificial scarcity is solely a product of capitalism is a comfortable thought, in that it can be rid of by a change in economic system, but it is never that simple.
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Elly, nasty enby :heart_pan: (elizafox@mst3k.interlinked.me)'s status on Sunday, 29-Oct-2017 00:00:00 EDT
Elly, nasty enby :heart_pan:
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Bob Mottram (bob@social.freedombone.net)'s status on Sunday, 29-Oct-2017 06:33:13 EDT
Bob Mottram
@elizafox it's not that scarcity didn't exist before capitalism, but that capitalists can use a combination of monopoly and artificial scarcity to inflate profits and extract value.
So for example if relatively self-sufficient peasant farmers are forcibly driven off of their crofts in clearances they can then be turned into needy proletarians who have to engage in wage labour on very unequal terms, or simply perish.
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