What is Scarcity?

In a perfect world, everyone would be able to receive everything they could ever want or need, no matter the circumstances. But in reality, people have to make careful decisions to optimize the goods and services they can actually obtain. These decisions often come in the form of trade-offs, which involve the sacrifice of one option for another. Because time is a limited resource, you might have to trade-off some sleep to study for an important test. Because money is a limited resource, you might have to trade-off the purchase of toys to buy some candy. You must give up the possibility of getting something to get something else. The best representation of this idea is scarcity, the gap between limited resources and nearly unlimited desires or wants. Almost everything is scarce, meaning there is a limited amount of goods and services in this world. This concept of scarcity forces people into making trade-offs and choosing between options. When dealing with scarce resources, you can not have everything you want or desire—trade-offs and decisions must be made.