10. Manufactured Scarcity: How the Economy is Engineered to Keep You Struggling
Poverty is not an accident. Debt is not an accident. The struggle to afford basic necessities is not an accident. The economy is structured to keep you working, afraid, and dependent.
If basic needs were guaranteed, people would stop tolerating exploitation. That is why they will never be guaranteed under capitalism.
Scarcity Is a Myth—But It’s the Foundation of the Economy
You have been taught to believe that scarcity is a natural condition of the world. That there is simply not enough to go around. That poverty exists because there are not enough resources, not enough jobs, not enough money.
This is a lie.
The world has more than enough resources to provide for everyone. There is more than enough food, more than enough housing, more than enough wealth. But the economy does not function on the principle of meeting human needs—it functions on the principle of keeping people dependent.
Food is deliberately wasted to keep prices high. Grocery stores throw away millions of pounds of food, while people go hungry.
Housing is deliberately kept scarce. There are more empty homes than homeless people, but housing is treated as an investment rather than a basic human right.
Jobs are structured to ensure desperation. Wages are kept low, benefits are restricted, and job security is rare—all to make sure that people remain fearful of unemployment and willing to accept poor conditions.
Scarcity is not the natural state of the world. It is an artificial condition, engineered to keep people struggling.
The Debt Trap: How Financial Slavery is Normalized
Debt is not just a financial issue—it is a control mechanism.
Student loans ensure that young people start adulthood in financial chains. Instead of using their education to build a better world, they are forced to take whatever job pays enough to cover their loans.
Medical debt ensures that people stay in line. In countries without universal healthcare, one medical emergency can financially destroy an individual or a family.
Credit cards, mortgages, and auto loans keep people running in circles. The cost of living is intentionally kept high, making debt a necessity rather than a choice.
Debt is designed to keep you from ever reaching true freedom. If you are constantly working to pay off loans, you have no time to challenge the system that put you in debt in the first place.
Wages Are Deliberately Suppressed
If capitalism were truly about rewarding hard work, wages would increase alongside productivity. But they don’t.
The cost of living has skyrocketed.
Worker productivity has increased.
Corporate profits have soared.
Wages have remained stagnant.
Why? Because keeping wages low ensures that people remain dependent on their jobs. If wages were fair, people would not tolerate abusive working conditions. If people had savings, they would not put up with exploitative employers. The system needs you to be just comfortable enough to survive—but never secure enough to walk away.
Why Basic Needs Will Never Be Guaranteed Under Capitalism
Every time a discussion about universal healthcare, universal basic income, or free education comes up, the same arguments are made:
“It’s too expensive.”
“People will become lazy.”
“It’s not realistic.”
None of these arguments are true. The real reason these policies are never implemented is because they would free people from economic control.
If housing were guaranteed, people would not tolerate low wages.
If healthcare were guaranteed, people would not stay in abusive jobs for insurance.
If education were guaranteed, people would have the knowledge to challenge the system.
Keeping people financially desperate is the entire point. That is why no amount of “voting” or “reform” will ever make capitalism work for the average person—it was never designed to.
The Illusion of Meritocracy
You are told that if you work hard, you will succeed. But success under capitalism is not about effort—it is about access.
Wealth is inherited. The richest people in the world were born into money.
Opportunities are gatekept. The best schools, jobs, and investments are only available to those who already have wealth.
Luck matters more than effort. For every self-made millionaire, there are millions of people who worked just as hard but remained poor.
The system does not reward work—it rewards control. And as long as people believe that success is within their reach if they just try hard enough, they will never realize that the game is rigged.
Breaking Free From Manufactured Scarcity
The first step to escaping the system is understanding that the struggle is not natural—it is imposed.
Recognize that wealth is hoarded, not created. There is no shortage of resources—only a system designed to keep them out of reach.
Challenge the idea that poverty is a personal failure. Poverty is a policy choice, not an inevitability.
Reject the mindset of scarcity. The world has enough for everyone—if people refuse to accept artificial barriers.
The moment people stop believing in the myth of scarcity, they stop accepting exploitation. And when that happens, the system collapses.
Sources:
Collins, C. (2021). The Wealth Hoarders: How Billionaires Pay Millions to Hide Trillions. Polity Press.
Graeber, D. (2011). Debt: The First 5,000 Years. Melville House.
Piketty, T. (2014). Capital in the Twenty-First Century. Harvard University Press.
Harvey, D. (2005). A Brief History of Neoliberalism. Oxford University Press.
Stiglitz, J. (2012). The Price of Inequality: How Today's Divided Society Endangers Our Future. W. W. Norton & Company.
