For subsistence farming societies, in other words, the “economic problem” and scarcity was often a matter of life and death. And the only obvious solution to it involved working harder and expanding into new territory. It is perhaps unsurprising, then, despite the fact that hardly any of us now produce our own food, that the sanctification of scarcity and the economic institutions and norms that emerged during this period still underwrite how we organize our economic life today.
