"Q:I can't fully comprehend why the market economy needs scarcity in order to function. You mention this a lot in your lectures/interviews, but I never fully understand what it is you are actually saying. Why is it impossible to have abundance in a market system? Is there any chance that the current system can alleviate absolute or relative poverty or is it mathematically impossible, as you mention, which I also don’t understand?"

"Under the surface of market economics in the need for constant consumption or “cyclical consumption”. If money doesn’t move, jobs are not created and the system can’t work. Constantly buying things - meaning the existence of perpetual perceived scarcity and material dissatisfaction (which is poverty of the spirit) is needed in this kind of “scarcity driven” economy in order for it to work to whatever degree. If people were happy and satisfied, focused on social rather than material life, the economy wouldn’t work. If goods were made with optimized levels of efficiency, as we have the grand power today with advanced tech - the economy wouldn’t work. Capitalism needs real of perceived scarcity to function, keeping money moving. It is a proxy economy, not a real one. It is a system that produces not because people need things - but because it has to produce. And not only is the ethic of scarcity the driving force behind profit, since a certain threshold of a good’s/resource’s lack of availability leads to better short-term returns, there is no incentive to produce “the best” possible goods at a given time (nor is there an interest in seeing a society that has decent mental or physical health).