Oct 10, 2025
Artificial Scarcity, Social Relations and Properties of Economic Goods
Some thoughts around artificial scarcity and the political economy around knowledge production and sharing, mostly influenced by Marx 1, De Angelis 2, Hess & Ostrom 3. Originally posted in my Mastodon profile.
Few people will deny that open access to information and knowledge greatly benefits society. It provides a universal public good: the more quality information, the greater the public good. Often, though, artificial scarcity is imposed on information and communication products (through copyright, paywalls, etc.).
It is usually emphasized that knowledge products are immaterial and non-rivalrous, and therefore, they present different qualities that define their economic value. Neoclassical economics treat rivalry (subtractability) as a characteristic of a good, without taking into account the social relations under which it is produced.
But the economic value of knowledge artifacts does not depend on their properties but on the amount of labor expended for their production. So despite it being true that knowledge and information products benefit from free sharing and collaborative production and can be shared with minimal or no cost, I believe it is important to first reflect on the material aspects of their production. Their production does involve (live) human labor and interaction with objectified labor (existing artifacts, like books, research, or computer code).
When we think of politico-economic aspects of our activity, it is always better to consider the social relations involved rather than the nature of the produced goods. And, of course, by extension, the social structures that impose these relations and the ideological ones that attempt to legitimize them. If despite the obvious benefits of sharing knowledge, it is not the standard practice or doesn’t make much sense in how we usually operate, we need to start getting critical of these structures.
Finally, just like knowledge can be enclosed behind a paywall and become private property, material goods and their production can be turned into commons, depending on the social relations involved in their production and distribution.