Scarcity as the Guiding Principle of Marginalist Analysis and the Original Sin of “Economic Science
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.5007/2177-5230.2025.e107989Keywords:
Scarcity, Substitution, Equilibrium, Full employment, Income distributionAbstract
The relative scarcity of goods and factors of production is the central analytical category for determining their relative prices, according to the marginalist approach. However, the functionality of the scarcity index also has some limitations, mainly regarding the condition of full employment of the factors of production. This article discusses how these limitations operate, pointing to problematic cases in the explanatory power of the relationship between scarcity and prices, as well as the derivations of macroeconomic aggregates arising from this relationship, such as the volume of income and its distribution. In this sense, the article contributes by showing the problematic or even mistaken nature of using the neoclassical relative scarcity index to value goods and factors of production under conditions of underutilization of productive resources and/or productive reproducibility in the economy.
Keywords: scarcity, substitution, equilibrium, full employment, income distribution.
JEL Codes: B12, B13, D31, P51
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