Every so often I hear people talk about the need for a "new" kind of economics geared toward the supposedly oncoming period of superabundance; an economics geared not toward management of scarcity, but of plenty.

The problem I see with this is that economics concerns itself with scarcity as a problem. The pollyannish formulation of "superabundance" boosters continue to tout, however, doesn't seem to be a problem at all. But abundance can, indeed, be a problem.

The opposite of scarcity is not abundance. It's excess; overabundance; glut.

There are plenty of existing examples of this: too much spam email; too much carbon dioxide; too much money; too much garbage and waste.

Comments –Nato