Editing Artificial scarcity (section)

== Arguments ==

=== Advocacy ===
Artificial scarcity is said to be necessary to promote the development of goods or prevent [[source depletion]]. In the example of digital information, it may be inexpensive to copy information almost infinitely, but it may require significant investment to develop the information in the first place. In the example of the [[pharmaceutical industry]], large scale production of most drugs is inexpensive, but developing safe and effective drugs can be  extremely expensive. Typically, drug companies have profit margins that extract much more excess profit than necessary to repay their initial investment. It is argued that this high payoff attracts more investment and labour talent, increasing the pace of [[drug development]]. The expiry of patents works to limit the period of exclusive rights to sell a new drug. After a time of profiting from legally enforced artificial scarcity, the patent expires, and other companies can make generic versions, and compete on price in a free market. {{citation needed|date=April 2018}}

=== Opposition ===
{{excerpt|Opposition to copyright#Non-scarcity}}

==== Right-wing ====
{{see also|Libertarian perspectives on intellectual property}}
Some [[classical liberal]]s and [[libertarian]]s oppose artificial scarcity on the grounds that their lack of physical scarcity means they are not subject to the same rationale behind material forms of [[private property]], and that most instances of artificial scarcity, such as [[intellectual property]], are creations of the state that limit the rights of the individual.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Palmer |first=T. G. |author-link=Tom G. Palmer|year=1990 |title=Are Patents and Copyrights Morally Justified? The Philosophy of Property Rights and Ideal Objects |url=http://tomgpalmer.com/wp-content/uploads/papers/palmer-morallyjustified-harvard-v13n3.pdf |journal=Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy |volume=13 |issue=3}}</ref>

An economic liberal argument against artificial scarcity is that, in the absence of artificial scarcity, businesses and individuals would create tools based on their own need (demand). For example, if a business had a strong need for a voice recognition program, they would pay to have the program developed to suit their needs. The business would profit not on the program, but on the resulting boost in efficiency enabled by the program. The subsequent abundance of the program would lower operating costs for the developer as well as other businesses using the new program. Lower costs for businesses result in lower prices in the competitive free market. Lower prices from suppliers would also raise profits for the original developer. In abundance, businesses would continue to pay to improve the program to best suit their own needs, and increase profits. Over time, the original business makes a return on investment, and the final [[consumer]] has access to a program that suits their needs better than any one program developer can predict. This is the common rationale behind [[open-source software]].<ref>Stalder, F., ''Open Cultures and the Nature of Networks'' ([[Frankfurt |Frankfurt am Main]]: Revolver—Archiv für aktuelle Kunst, 2005), p. 20.</ref>{{rp|20}}

==== Left-wing ====
{{see also|Post-scarcity economy}}
[[Social liberalism|Social liberals]], [[Socialism|socialists]] and [[Anarchism|anarchists]] argue that artificial scarcity is beneficial for the owner, but unfavourable towards the consumer, as it enables the owner to capitalise off ideas and products that are otherwise not property in the physical sense.

Socialists extend their argument to include "socially wasteful production" such as the production of goods which are seen as "status" goods (e.g. diamonds or expensive cars). This sort of production leads to a situation of artificial scarcity of socially useful goods because a large part of society's resources are being diverted to the production of these goods. For example, capitalism has led to the growth of money-based activities like banking-retailing services, remedial measures to deal with [[trade union]] issues, and other such activities to protect capitalism such as weapons research and the development of security firms; socialists argue that the allocation of resources to these activities is not socially useful.<ref name=worldsocialism/>

Some socialists argue that not only artificial scarcity but even the doctrine of scarcity itself is a creation of the capitalist system because any kind of property was considered a burden for the nomadic lifestyle when civilisation was in the [[hunter-gatherer]] stage.<ref name=worldsocialism/> Along with some [[free-market]] libertarians and anarchists, they will argue for [[Sharing economy|sharing economies]] and [[Post-scarcity economy|post-scarcity economics]], both questioning the scarcity of physical and intellectual goods as currently imposed by artificial cultural, bureaucratic, or economic constraints.