Scarcity means that at a zero price the supply of something exceeds its demand. The existence of non-zero prices is the proof of scarcity. This is fairly simplistic, but so long as there are no barriers to entry, suppliers would find it profitable to bid down prices so long as a resource or product is not scarce. In the limit, without scarcity price would fall to zero. One might think that distribution of resources matters, but it does not affect the answer so long as there is not a single monopolist or an effective cartel arrangement that prevents cheating (an extremely high bar) there cannot be an artificial scarcity that creates positive prices when the price would otherwise be zero. Short of monopoly pricing, including ruling out entry, an apparent shortage witnessed by positive price cannot exist when supply exceeds demand at a zero price. 

Scarcity means that at a zero price the supply of something exceeds its demand. The existence of non-zero prices is the proof of scarcity. This is fairly simplistic, but so long as there are no barriers to entry, suppliers would find it profitable to bid down prices so long as a resource or product is not scarce. In the limit, without scarcity price would fall to zero. One might think that distribution of resources matters, but it does not affect the answer so long as there is not a single monopolist or an effective cartel arrangement that prevents cheating (an extremely high bar) there cannot be an artificial scarcity that creates positive prices when the price would otherwise be zero. Short of monopoly pricing, including ruling out entry, an apparent shortage witnessed by positive price cannot exist when supply exceeds demand at a zero price. 

Your answer is a highly valued Sir

Especially as it explained in detail the cause of scarcity which is the existence of price as an a evidence of competition on goods

But poor distribution or unfairness still may be another reason for my scarcity

Accept my respect @John A. Tatom

John Tatom is right on target when he suggests that positive resource prices is evidence of scarcity. In addition, he has valuable insight into the question of fairness.

Part of the challenge is using words like "fair" (or "unfair") because these words may have different meaning to different people.  Some think of fairness as equality. Others think of an absence of arbitrary or capricious distributions in this example. Other connotations exist as well.

For example, is it unfair to allow a 17-year old child to stay out longer than a 13-year old child?  The 13-year old may argue that it is not fair (i.e., because it is not equal). 

Salem, you asked about "poor distribution or unfairness still may be another reason for my scarcity."   Perhaps we would find it helpful to consider scarcity from society's perspective and use different terms for the distributional effects and their wide-ranging implications.  

From society's perspective, we seek to use or allocate those scarce resources to help society stretch them to enable society to achieve the maximum possible social welfare. 

 I hope this helps.

Rob

You Rob Catlett  and John A. Tatom Your explanation was adequate and comprehensive.

Thank you

Salam Jassim Hmood I hope you understand that competition is not the cause of scarcity either, as your response suggests. Like prices, competition is "evidence" or "proof" that there is scarcity, which is usually thought of as "unlimited want in the presence of limited resources." The former is presumably part of human nature and the latter is simply a fact. 

Absolutely The most honorable sir

I believe in that, but through your answers, I can make the idea more mature with my students

You and your comments have all the respect and I wish to be in constant contact with you

best regards 

Hi Salam, Dr. Tatom is absolutely correct. H. H. Gossen pointed this out way back in the early 1800s. But your comment regarding poor distributions and unfairness is not really responding to scarcity per se. Those problems exist not solely due to the ubiquitous problem of scarcity, but also due to other factors as well. For example, there can be scarcity, while still maintaining a fair allocation (at least by some definitions of "fairness'). Institutional factors (infrastructure, politics, crime, etc.) also play a big role. 

The problem that there is always "not enough to go around" means that we will always have to deal with this problem. It's the main reason economics exists in the first place. There is no 'Amazon Free' but if there were, we economists would have to get other (real?) jobs.

Warmest regards

I did not argue with Dr. Tatom about what he did with the details of the evidence of scarcity

But I try as much as possible to gather as much of the views as possible in order to formulate a new thesis on the causes of scarcity

In any case, your valuable information will be taken into consideration and respect

I accept my sincere greetings and I am honored to know you

The questions are interesting. Perhaps the contexts they fit into are also interesting.

Economic resources, let's say iron ore, are not distributed evenly over the world. The people who control the territory wherein the resources are found may collect them and trade them with other territories that have little of their own. Places like Japan have little in the way of natural resources. Nevertheless they can succeed very well due to their possession of immaterial resources.

The world was not formed with an equal distribution of resources. Areas that have abundant arable land and other agricultural resources may not be at all rich in mineral resources. If there were a world government, the local processors of the iron orem and the local growers of the wheat could easily trade among themselves. Within the United States there are clear inequities due to the vagaries of distribution in conjunction with substantial lags in re-education and migration. The coal mining industry, for instance, has depleted once rich anthracite coal deposits and has found more and more problems in selling bituminous coal. The growing availability of natural gas has added further softness in demand for jobs in the coal mines. The people who once mined coal lived hard lives and generally did not prepare themselves for changing jobs. On top of that, much of their savings have been invested in their land and houses. Those investments have fallen in value as the resources have been depleted and the demand for workers has decreased. Under such conditions it is necessarily difficult to achieve a new social and economic equilibrium.

Disequilibrium in the value to be realized from resources causes disaster for some and prosperity for others; there is nothing fair about this process.

Is there a great sufficiency of oil in the world? It might seem so, but Venezuela, Saudi Arabia, Canada, Iran, Iraq, Libya, and Nigeria have most of it, over 80% of world totals, and even so the wealth that these natural resources produce are not shared equally among the citizens of those countries, much less among the citizens of all the countries of the world. Moreover, these oil reserves are a finite resource. Experience with shale oil in the USA shows that it is no mistake to believe that the cost of extracting oil from the earth may one day exceed the value to be gained by the sale of the oil. That is not all. It takes a definite amount of energy to extract energy resources such as coal and oil from the earth. At some point the quality of available resources will be so low that it will take more energy to produce the oil than is gained by burning that oil as fuel.

What is fair about any of these outcomes? Is it fair that oil incomes should be concentrated among a few nations in the world, and that the income earned in those nations should further be concentrated in the hands of a few wealthy people who own the oil fields and the production machinery? Canada is a democratic nation without many of the social ills that plague the USA, yet the bottom 40% of the people share only 3% of the national wealth. Across the world, for comparison, 99.9% of the world's population share out only 19% of the world's wealth. Wealth per capita is highest in North America, most of Europe, and Australia. https://www.wider.unu.edu/publication/global-distribution-household-wealth 

There are probably people who would argue that it is appropriate that the wealthiest 20% of Canadians control 67% of the wealth. Perhaps it would be argued that they are the excellent capitalists who make the instruments of production through which the other 80% are enabled to have paying jobs. I do not see any easy way to end such an argument conclusively.

Consider, on the other hand, whether it is fair or desirable to have the average wages of some countries at around $50,000/year and the average wages of some other countries to be $2,000/year. Paying fuel costs during one of the coldest winters in Minnesota quickly made it obvious to me that I got to keep almost none of what had originally looked like a fair salary. People who are needed to live and work in Manhattan must be paid more than somebody who does the same job in Oklahoma City. So living on $2,000/year in India might not be much worse than living on $50,000/year in the USA. Obviously, it would be impossible for somebody making $2,000/year to afford to buy a Macintosh computer or other high-ticket items. The really important factors would be adequate diet and housing, adequate medical care, and adequate education.

Rather than getting stuck with rationalizations for why vast inequalities of income are desirable, I think it would be more useful to ask what it would take to make the world sufficiently fair for all people.

One of the great problems, and one that appears on a yearly basis somewhere in the world, is famine. Is there really too little arable land to produce enough food for all humans? Waste of food and poor distribution of food both seem to be potent sources of problems. Also, grain production diverted to meat production is known to drive the average cost of a meal much higher by taking grains out of the direct food consumption channels. Even if the world is able to produce enough food for everyone, it still must be able to deliver that food to the people most in need of it.

Nepal has an economy toward the low end of the countries of the world. Nevertheless, it has some agricultural products to export and imports mainly petroleum and production machinery. Since 1990 it has improved its business situation with respect to the rest of the world. That is one example in which a nation that was once faring poorly has come closer to being in balance with the general world economy. That balance seems to be the main thing that can help produce a fair distribution of goods in the world.

As to whether there is a real scarcity of economic resources, I think the answer is a qualified yes. Resources are indeed scarce and getting scarcer if we look at mineral resources such as oil, arable land, and water.  However, by switching to solar power, hydroelectric power, geothermal power, and wind and water power, there will in future be no time that we reach the last drop in the wells or the last grains in the mines. Arable lands are under multiple attack because of global warming, because of environmental destruction due to growing populations and over-farming, and possibly as a result of chaotic migration patterns as the environment continues to accelerate in its deterioration. The oceans are also rapidly deteriorating and the impacts of this change will likely be generalized across the face of the earth and "fair." Some of the bad environmental effects on agriculture could be countered by hydroponic farming and desalination. But many of these problems are going to be very hard to cope with in, e.g., marginal lands undergoing desertification. Who will step up to address the troubles of marginal lands and populations?

All of these problems depend on the will of people who serve other people by acting in good faith in government. If the government of country X does not care that its farmers whose lands are being carried away by dust storms must become internal refugees in penury or die in place, then there is little that can be done. If there were a world government, or at least a number of world service organizations on the model of the World Health Organizations, then the question would be whether they could recruit and distribute resources to aid the marginalized people of the world. Unfortunately, the world of 2017 seems to be more and more dominated by people like Trump and Putin, people who think a win for a third nation is a loss for their own. If they continue to dominate world developments there will be little to no progress toward a better world to live in unless some third source of altruistic and also objective leadership can emerge and coordinate activities among non-governmental groups and any nations not dedicated to playing their own version of the zero-sum game.

Dear Patrick Edwin Moran 

Your answer is very adequate

it is in tune with the rest of the professors answers but with valued information

And will take it into account in preparation for my study on the subject of the question

It is as I said a very important question

Thank you and I will communicate with you scientifically