Resources, scarcity and how it affects you.

“Finite resources, unlimited wants”, is a basic economic problem that the world faces regularly, as the human population continues to increase, the issue of resource allocation of finite resources, especially ones that are non-renewable such as fossil fuels and oil becomes more of a pressing issue, as these resources are used to ensure basic functionality of a modern society. 

With the continued depletion of Earth’s non-renewable resources, the management and distribution of resources have come to be even more important as it affects the price and continued availability of said goods, discounting the efforts to shift to renewable sources. Nations have tried to seek and attain resources at any cost necessary as a result, especially for non-renewable goods, an example is how oil has been highly sought after by many nations, with the war in Iraq by the United States is widely believed to be for oil and more recently, China has been said to invest heavily in the Middle East and North African regions for a number of reasons and resources, with oil being one of them.

The aforementioned example of China has resulted in other countries, namely the United States and the region of Europe, as they don’t like that China is getting an edge over them in resources, the above is an example of the struggle of resources and how nations are willing to go to lengths to attain resources they want.

The constant struggle and efforts to attain resources and its effects do not stop at just countries and their governments, but the people of said nations are also affected. While scarcity of resources could mean more common, but still potentially devastating rises in price of the sought after good for example, it could also mean that, if your country is the one being targeted to gain the goods and resources from, the people may have to suffer as a result from the ambition of other nations if they are kept unchecked, as these ambitions could result in further conflict and perhaps, war.

It is important to understand this basic problem of economics of “Finite resources, unlimited wants”, as it is the very core of economics, as trade happens as a result of wanting a certain good or service, typically to solve a desire or need. The more we understand this concept, we can then understand the causes for many conflicts in the world and we as the next generation, should aim to fix it by cooperation in distribution, while everybody might not be getting the resource amount that they would want, but it would be better than having a country have a disproportionate amount of resources and having inequality in the amount of needed resources.

References

Juhasz, A. (2013, April 15). Why the war in Iraq was fought for big oil. CNN. https://edition.cnn.com/2013/03/19/opinion/iraq-war-oil-juhasz/index.html

Juneja, P. (n.d.). International business: The resource wars. Management Study Guide – Courses for Students, Professionals & Faculty Members. https://www.managementstudyguide.com/international-business-and-resource-wars.htm