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Abstract
Dominion of the scarcity principle as the basis for economic analysis is virtually absolute in teaching the introductory course in economics. This supremacy is neither valid nor desirable. Two compelling alternative foundational concepts for economics are uncertainty and inequality. These alternatives lead to vastly different implications for the development of economic analysis than scarcity and vastly different implications for the teaching of economics.
Notes
1 The prevalence of scarcity as a guiding principle for economics has led many to assert that economics has been dubbed “the dismal science” precisely because of that principle. But the phrase “the dismal science” has origins unconnected to the scarcity principle. It was a derogatory term applied to economics in the mid-19th century by Thomas Carlyle who opposed its laissez-faire, free market orientation, particularly with respect to mobilization of labor. Carlyle favored enslavement of Blacks in the West Indies over the hiring of free labor to perform the work required in colonial plantation agriculture (see Dixon Citation2006).
2 Anderson and Dunn (Citation2006) provide a compelling illustration of Galbraith’s want-creation hypothesis in the practices of the corporations making tobacco products.
3 For a valuable taxonomic treatment of categories of risk and uncertainty, see Hoffman (Citation2018).