The difference is that humans have this unique ability: self awareness. Humans are able to see themselves as a separate entity, as opposed to other humans. This also us to reflect on our own needs and desires, but also about the desires and needs of other individuals. It's this ability that has led to the emergence of language, culture and technology.
A human economy is an extension of the behaviours you'd see in other species. It just so happens that humans are able to steer that behaviour. The trouble is that we aren't that good at gauging the extent to which we get to control individual as well as collective and emergent behaviour.
So, reality is layered. On an abstract level, a human economy is seemingly based off a complex set of artificial social constructs used by humans to describe and handle that reality; but on a much lower level, a human economy is the net result of emergent individual and social behavioural patterns which, in themselves, have a clear overlap with other species. The fallacy then is to try and draw a clear border between those two levels.
If you believe you are self-aware then I suspect that it's more a problem of recognition than self-awareness being absent.
If you don't believe that you are self-aware, that's really interesting. Please elaborate!
Certainly I think that's what my parents were implying when they accused me of it. At least I doubt they were worried I was a p-zombie.
There are approximately 570,000 homeless people in the US[1]. Jeff Bezos has a net worth of $188 billion[2]. The median price of a house in the US is $218,000. Jeff Bezos could buy every homeless person in the US a house at that median price, and still have $63.7 billion[3], leaving him the 5th richest person in the world[4].
And that's massively more money than is necessary to solve the actual homelessness problem in the US, which doesn't require 570,000 homes (because more than one person can live in one home) and doesn't require median value homes (because much cheaper homes are adequate). Yes, buying housing for hundreds of thousands of people would drive up housing prices, but surely a massive influx of capital would prompt more construction to meet demand. This is absolutely doable if Bezos decided to do it.
In short, the entire US housing crisis is smaller than a manufactured scarcity that only exists because Jeff Bezos has decided that $63.7 billion isn't enough incentive to work at Amazon, so 570,000 people should be homeless.
I realize I'm singling out Bezos here--yes, Bezos is a terrible person, but there are other billionaires who could easily solve the US housing crisis, and there's an entire system of people who have sided with the billionaires over the homeless time and time again. The responsibility for this travesty doesn't rest solely on Bezos' shoulders.
I also realize that homelessness isn't our only problem. There is real scarcity, and simply fixing income inequality isn't going to fix all scarcities.
But there can be no doubt that at least some of our most chronic problems only exist because there is a consensus that solving those problems isn't worth the wealthy giving up a portion of their wealth. You can argue whether that's justified or not, but you can't argue that these problems aren't solvable.
[1] https://endhomelessness.org/homelessness-in-america/homeless...
[2] https://www.forbes.com/profile/jeff-bezos/#575a78ae1b23
[3] 188,000,000,000 -(218,000 * 570,000) = 63,740,000,000
What about the people living in those homes now? Where do they move? And: Wouldn't the price of homes rise if Jeff Bezos were to start buying them up?
With recent cash injections by the US Fed and government totaling over $5 trillion, loans or not, we've demonstrated that the dollar is not scarce. Even in the face of inflation worries these injections will probably continue to offset losses and try to make the current administration not look as bad for mishandling the pandemic and following economic crisis. The inflation worry seems mitigated by international use of the dollar with maybe 10x more people interfacing with the currency in some way week to week versus just the US population. People working as Economists vs me with just a degree say things like "...the sharp drop in demand and prices for certain services and energy implies a significantly lower trajectory for both core and headline inflation." I'm not saying it won't catch up to the Dollar eventually, just that the short term worries seem appear offset by the massive pool of international users and curbed by the projected loss of GDP across that pool. I will not that this is not the same during economic booms, in fact that's exactly the right time to pull cash out of the system via higher taxes as it is being generated by the economy and productivity, not the Fed.
Before those injections, I've always thought that if we can provide the better part of a trillion dollars per year to Defense and now can pass on trillions to businesses (deserving or not), we can afford Universal healthcare, proper mental health services, an overhaul of public servants to counter corruption, favoritism, and police brutality. We can afford to feed and house those who cannot afford it themselves AND those impacted by the current economic crisis from those who lost their jobs to those working an 'essential' position but making less than a living wage. Perhaps if businesses were freed of the costs of healthcare administration and related benefits they can be obligated to turn that into investment in their business and employees vs pocketing the savings.
As an non-US example, the UK suddenly has the funding to feed millions of underprivileged kids through the summer. It's 120M sure but is a prime example of a politically explosive (the funding, not the cause) but totally feasible program if we recognize the money exists or can exist at little downside compared to the outcome ie feeding children. In terms of global hunger that does still seem to be a distribution issue, not a scarcity issue.
Investments in our youth are one of the best long term ways to fight inequality and more. We should be aggressively fighting to keep them fed, well educated, and motivated be that in the US, UK, or Senegal.
Again, I generally agree with your comment. Economics is all about resource scarcity and solutioning around those limitations. But I think some scarcity is absolutely self imposed be it for political reasons or simple human greed. Leveraging your access to a scarce resource is an incredibly viable business model in capitalism just like DeBeers. But, we can step back from the drive to more profit and recognize we have an ethical obligation to (channeling leave no trace here) not only leave things as good as we found it but do our best to make the world better and propel the next generation into even more opportunity. That's why people came to the US, opportunity, and we owe it to our ancestors and the spirit of America to continue that legacy.
Thanks for coming to my TED talk on ethical capitalism.
Fed balance sheet and inflation: https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/27/the-feds-balance-sheet-just-...
Also but not from a major outlet: https://www.coindesk.com/fed-officials-see-anemic-inflation-...
And from a well reviewed blog: https://www.moneyandbanking.com/commentary/2020/4/26/inflati...
UK meals program: https://edition.cnn.com/2020/06/16/football/marcus-rashford-...
Investment in youth: https://www.brookings.edu/research/investing-in-the-next-gen...
And from another .edu: https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2019/07/opportunity-i...
World hunger as a distribution issue (2013): https://www.cnbc.com/id/100893540
And here from a related non profit (find the 'Does the world produce enough food to feed everyone?' section): https://www.worldhunger.org/world-hunger-and-poverty-facts-a...