I'm inclined to believe we are experiencing scarcity. Sure, I can buy just about anything I desire and can afford. Any food item, cheap clothing, cheap travel. But I think that's an illusion.
Let's say I'm prepared to pay £50-£100 for an item of clothing. Shoes, jacket, whatever. It's likely to be made by impoverished people on the other side of the world who are paid peanuts.
I could even pay £5 for a pair of jeans if I wanted. God knows how that's even possible.
But it's a sliding tile puzzle. If I experience cheap apparently-plentiful goods, it's only because someone else is suffering.
I'm not prepared to pay £300 for a long-lasting item of clothing. The thought barely crosses my mind because I never see that stuff in the windows of high-street shops. Instead, I typically buy "cheap", "plentiful" goods that fall apart after a year or two -- or go out of fashion -- then replace them.
Ethically I dislike this, and try to shop "ethically" and donate old clothing to charity. This requires high levels of vigilance, and is not convenient.
All the above apply to food. I can buy apparently any item I want. Or can I? In actuality, I can buy whatever trendy item the supermarkets can buy in bulk for best profit. Great, I'll have some kale and coconut water and acai berries. Is that "plenty"? What about locally produced fruit and veg? Why do I have to invest in a comparatively-expensive box delivery scheme if I want apples that were grown in my country?
If I want to eat locally reared meat I have to pay a premium, because provenance has become a valuable attribute. Instead I could buy mechanically recovered pressed meat, which is unbelievably cheap and widely available. Even if I believe it's healthy to eat that stuff, and even though both products are undeniably "meat", they're not the same.
Perhaps meat being expensive is actually normal. That's certainly been the case for most of history. In which case, the cheapness of the lower quality meat products is the illusory factor.
So I think "plenty" is an illusion, and scarcity is far, far closer than we conspire to believe.
Edit: I forgot the most obvious and familiar example. Ad-funded content/services vs paid-for content/services.
You say were experiencing scarcity then you start listing off luxuries! A mechanically constructed, mechanically harvested cotton blanket and mechanically harvested diet of beans and potatoes sounds more feasible. Maybe even too basic.
An efficient entry-level post-scarcity world is not going to overproduce pairs of jeans or transport coconut water across the world. That world would make just enough clothing to cover the populace and provide a cup of water on request. That world would want to stay just above scarcity, no want to waste, no need to introduce artificial market driven scarcities.
While pretty hideous sweashops do exist, there is still good chance that the person who sowed your jeans chose to do it. Because the alternative was even worse.
And to what extent are we responsible for those alternatives? How much are the companies we patronize invested in making sure their employees have no choice?
Well given that large parts of south Asia and Africa are still medieval poor, I'm not going to assume much responsibility. You don't need to beat people into desperation in many places of the world.
My great-great-great-great-great grandfather might have had something to do with colonialism. But if we start judging sons by their fathers, we get nowhere. And at the same time people remain poor in Africa.
Buying only domestic goods would help to ensure that they remain poor.
The one instance that really has incentive to keep people poor are the foreign development organizations. They don't need people "poor enough to be willing to work" they need people "starving, so we get good footage".
I'm inclined to believe we are experiencing scarcity. Sure, I can buy just about anything I desire and can afford. Any food item, cheap clothing, cheap travel. But I think that's an illusion.
Let's say I'm prepared to pay £50-£100 for an item of clothing. Shoes, jacket, whatever. It's likely to be made by impoverished people on the other side of the world who are paid peanuts.
I could even pay £5 for a pair of jeans if I wanted. God knows how that's even possible.
But it's a sliding tile puzzle. If I experience cheap apparently-plentiful goods, it's only because someone else is suffering.
I'm not prepared to pay £300 for a long-lasting item of clothing. The thought barely crosses my mind because I never see that stuff in the windows of high-street shops. Instead, I typically buy "cheap", "plentiful" goods that fall apart after a year or two -- or go out of fashion -- then replace them.
Ethically I dislike this, and try to shop "ethically" and donate old clothing to charity. This requires high levels of vigilance, and is not convenient.
All the above apply to food. I can buy apparently any item I want. Or can I? In actuality, I can buy whatever trendy item the supermarkets can buy in bulk for best profit. Great, I'll have some kale and coconut water and acai berries. Is that "plenty"? What about locally produced fruit and veg? Why do I have to invest in a comparatively-expensive box delivery scheme if I want apples that were grown in my country?
If I want to eat locally reared meat I have to pay a premium, because provenance has become a valuable attribute. Instead I could buy mechanically recovered pressed meat, which is unbelievably cheap and widely available. Even if I believe it's healthy to eat that stuff, and even though both products are undeniably "meat", they're not the same.
Perhaps meat being expensive is actually normal. That's certainly been the case for most of history. In which case, the cheapness of the lower quality meat products is the illusory factor.
So I think "plenty" is an illusion, and scarcity is far, far closer than we conspire to believe.
Edit: I forgot the most obvious and familiar example. Ad-funded content/services vs paid-for content/services.