On their website, the American Economic Association says, “It’s the study of scarcity, the study of how people use resources and respond to incentives.” My son-in-law Dave teaches high school economics, and the first principle his students learn is that economics is about decision making in the face of scarcity. Anything and everything in a market is implicitly defined as scarce. With scarcity as the main principle, the mindset that follows is based on commodification of goods and services.
