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Scarcity, Abundance and Sufficiency Adel Daoud SCARCITY, ABUNDANCE AND SUFFICIENCY SCARCITY, ABUNDANCE AND SUFFICIENCY CONTRIBUTIONS TO SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC THEORY Adel Daoud 2011 ISBN: 978-91-979397-1-3 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, Göteborg 2011. 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 Acknowledgments It is not possible to carry out any academic work of this magnitude without the moral and intellectual support of your fellows. It is particularly true of this thesis: I have an extensive list of persons I wish to thank. I have had the unique opportunity of having three supervisors, all of whom have had their share in the making of this thesis as well as the shaping of my academic thinking. Freddy Winston Castro has been an important source of intel- lectual and moral support during my undergraduate student years and my early years as a doctoral student. Thanks Freddy for all your time, and for making me realize the importance of looking at all the assumptions underlying social theory and not just at theory itself. Bengt Larsson formally took over the role of super- visor when Freddy retired, but your office door has always been upon for me. Among other things, Bengt has taught me the challenging craft of writing scien- tific articles – the significance of this cannot be underestimated. I want to thank you Bengt, not least for introducing me to the exiting field of economic sociology. I also wish to thank Björn Halleröd, who came in at the later stages of my thesis and helped me further with what Freddy and Bengt had initiated, sim- ply becoming a better social scientist. Thank you all for taking your valuable time to read and comment on my work as well as for your patience and belief in this project. I cannot thank you enough. One of the nice things about writing a thesis that is a collection of publica- tions is that it is easier to collaborate with your colleagues. One of the papers in this thesis came about through such a collaboration. I want to express my grati- tude to Goran Puaca for all the lunches, many hours of intellectual discussions over Skype, and for his support during the actual field work we did. It is actually a real comfort to have somebody with whom to share the joy of writing and some of the despair of the peer review process. Working with you was truly a pleasure, and I am looking forward to much more collaboration in the future. Another nice thing about writing a thesis in this way is that you obtain a large number of comments from both editors and anonymous colleagues, many very constructive and a smaller portion less constructive. All of them, however, re- quire a great deal of the time and effort. I therefore wish to thank all the editors and anonymous reviewers who have commented on various manuscripts I have 1 submitted to various journals – a special thanks to those who put in extra effort. One of these persons is Martha Starr at Boston University. Earlier versions of all five papers have been presented at various international conferences: I have been a frequent visitor to at least two such conferences, the Annual Conference of the Association of Heterodox Economics and the Interna- tional Conference for Critical Realism. I want to thank all the delegates who showed an interest in and commented on earlier versions of my papers. Many valuable ideas have emerged from these presentations. I would like to give a special thanks to Roy Bhaskar, Margaret Archer, Andrew Mearman, Paul Downward, Steve Fleetwood, Caroline New, Wendy Olsen, Fred Lee, Mervyn Hartwig, Andy Denis, Brendan Sheehan, Eric Berr, Jack Reardon, Björn-Ivar Davidsen, Pär Engholm, Elias La Grand, Ismael Al-Amoudi, and John Latsis.
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