tag:theconversation.com,2011:/us/topics/scarcity-of-resources-8262/articlesScarcity of resources – The Conversation2023-07-02T20:02:59Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2080082023-07-02T20:02:59Z2023-07-02T20:02:59ZHow do I tell my kids we are currently short on money – without freaking them out?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/534234/original/file-20230627-7269-19eu48.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C31%2C5276%2C3480&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.pexels.com/photo/a-father-talking-his-children-8763031/">Pexels/Pavel Danilyuk</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>I was a teenager during Australia’s 1990s “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/nov/17/remembering-the-recession-the-1990s-experience-changed-my-view-of-the-world">recession we had to have</a>”, and remember clearly a friend asking his dad for some money to go to the movies. </p>
<p>With equal parts frustration and resignation, the dad explained he’d been retrenched and wasn’t certain employment was on the horizon in his near future. So he really didn’t have any spare money for cinema tickets.</p>
<p>Rather than being scary or upsetting, as rather clueless teenagers this felt like something of a lightbulb moment. </p>
<p>Many kids learn about their parents financial difficulties this way. Something they’ve always been able to have is suddenly denied them. The penny drops. </p>
<p>But it’s not easy talking to your kids about the cost-of-living crunch. Many fear worrying their kids or leaving them with a lifelong “scarcity mindset”, where a person is forever cursed with a feeling spending money is always wrong. </p>
<p>So how can parents communicate the financial realities to their children? And how might the messaging be different with younger kids versus teens?</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/534235/original/file-20230627-27-1hrzvg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A man and child talk in a park." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/534235/original/file-20230627-27-1hrzvg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/534235/original/file-20230627-27-1hrzvg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=382&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534235/original/file-20230627-27-1hrzvg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=382&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534235/original/file-20230627-27-1hrzvg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=382&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534235/original/file-20230627-27-1hrzvg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534235/original/file-20230627-27-1hrzvg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534235/original/file-20230627-27-1hrzvg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Keep calm and don’t let your own anxieties rub off on your kids.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.pexels.com/photo/young-man-holding-and-talking-to-a-boy-in-the-park-13621144/">Pexels/Archer Hsu</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
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Read more:
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<h2>For younger kids, keep things calm and simple</h2>
<p>Most primary-aged children are oblivious to macro conditions outside their home and immediate community. They haven’t yet developed the ability to put sudden changes into perspective. </p>
<p>The key here is not to have your own anxieties rub off on your kids.</p>
<p>Children this age look to their parents as beacons of information and will very much <a href="https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2794157">mirror</a> any fear or anxiety you express. They may even blow things out of proportion.</p>
<p>Keeping things calm and simple is key.</p>
<p>Provide a basic explanation that things cost money, and you don’t have as much money as normal right now, so as a family there are certain things you just can’t afford. </p>
<p>Very young children can be relentlessly narcissistic in their outlook – this is developmentally normal. </p>
<p>They might even demand you work more or harder so they can afford their desired items and activities. The best you can do is laugh it off and offer to try – but explain that for now, the kids will have to come up with something else to do.</p>
<p>Consider a plan to substitute their previous activities with free ones. For example, explain they can’t play their usual sport this season, but you are going to head to the local park every week to kick the ball around and have a picnic instead.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/534236/original/file-20230627-23-66qldg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/534236/original/file-20230627-23-66qldg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/534236/original/file-20230627-23-66qldg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534236/original/file-20230627-23-66qldg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534236/original/file-20230627-23-66qldg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534236/original/file-20230627-23-66qldg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534236/original/file-20230627-23-66qldg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534236/original/file-20230627-23-66qldg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Is there a free alternative to the things they want to buy and do?</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.pexels.com/photo/black-boy-throwing-ball-to-father-5240426/">Pexels/Anete Lusina</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
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<h2>Ask teens for their opinions and ideas</h2>
<p>Depending on their intrinsic interest in the news and understanding of maths, finance and economics, a sudden and unexpected drop in finances may also come as a shock to teenagers. </p>
<p>But at around 12 years of age, children undergo somewhat of an explosion in <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3621648/">frontal lobe function</a>. Their capacity to comprehend and process even complex information increases quite markedly.</p>
<p>So teens may not only understand your current situation, but be able to help out.</p>
<p>Giving teens a “role” to play in assisting the family builds a sense of competence and offers a team-based problem-solving approach to the emotional concerns they may be feeling. In other words, they’ll feel less powerless.</p>
<p>This approach is underpinned by what psychologists and researchers call “<a href="https://selfdeterminationtheory.org/theory/">self-determination theory</a>”.</p>
<p>This well-studied concept posits that most humans have an innate need to:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>experience and demonstrate autonomy (making your own choices, acting on your own volition)</p></li>
<li><p>competence (feeling like you’re good at something, have achieved something worthwhile) </p></li>
<li><p>relatedness (working well with others, especially people important to you). </p></li>
</ul>
<p>So working as a team towards a common goal is a great way for a family to pull together and help each others’ mental wellbeing.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/534240/original/file-20230627-21-k5oqyc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/534240/original/file-20230627-21-k5oqyc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/534240/original/file-20230627-21-k5oqyc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534240/original/file-20230627-21-k5oqyc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534240/original/file-20230627-21-k5oqyc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534240/original/file-20230627-21-k5oqyc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534240/original/file-20230627-21-k5oqyc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534240/original/file-20230627-21-k5oqyc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Ask your teen for suggestions and show you take their opinions seriously.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.pexels.com/photo/girls-sitting-on-the-floor-while-having-conversation-5999067/">Pexels/cottonbro studio</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
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<p>Discuss with your teens what activities, events and items might need to go on the backburner or be discontinued.</p>
<p>And don’t forget, teens have a very well-honed hypocrisy radar – there’s no point suggesting they cut back on recreational activities, for example, if you are not willing to do the same.</p>
<p>Use this as an opportunity to discuss the difference between “wants” and “needs” and ask them to sort family spending into those categories. Discuss points of disagreement calmly.</p>
<p>Ask your teens to brainstorm ways to improve your financial efficiency – and help you in doing so. They might enjoy coming up with ideas such as grocery shopping with a strict meal plan in cheaper stores, looking for specials, riding or walking to school where possible, getting a part time job or helping out with childcare.</p>
<p>Rather than fixating on what we have to go without, work with your teenagers to come up with proactive ideas on what you can do differently. Frame it as working together to achieve the same aim.</p>
<p>Teach your kids there can be challenges in life, but how you go about managing them is the key. This will help them develop into resilient adults.</p>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/is-it-ok-to-prank-your-kids-do-they-get-it-and-wheres-the-line-195932">Is it OK to prank your kids? Do they get it? And where’s the line?</a>
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<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/208008/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rachael Sharman does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>It’s not easy talking to kids about the cost-of-living crunch. Many fear landing their kids with a lifelong ‘scarcity mindset’, where a person is cursed with a feeling spending money is always wrong.Rachael Sharman, Senior Lecturer in Psychology, University of the Sunshine CoastLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1160702019-05-06T04:24:24Z2019-05-06T04:24:24ZAvengers: Endgame and why a smaller population doesn’t guarantee paradise<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/272135/original/file-20190502-117574-17lz01o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">In the latest Avengers film, our heroes grapple with the consequences of villain Thanos wiping out half the population. The study of resource management shows why this wouldn't necessarily solve hunger and resource scarcity.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Marvel Studios/IMDB</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4154796/?ref_=nv_sr_1?ref_=nv_sr_1">Avengers: Endgame</a>, the highly-anticipated 22nd film in the Marvel franchise, Earth’s mightiest heroes contend with the repercussions of supervillain Thanos wiping out half of all life in the universe with the snap of his fingers. </p>
<p>But did he need to? Not exactly. When setting the events of Endgame in motion during <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4154756/?ref_=nv_sr_2?ref_=nv_sr_2">Avengers: Infinity War</a>, Thanos said:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>It’s a simple calculus. This universe is finite, its resources finite. If life is left unchecked, life will cease to exist. It needs correction. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Thanos turns half of all life into dust. But according to the study of resource management and geography, population reduction does not necessarily solve the problem of <a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_Departments/Parliamentary_Library/Browse_by_Topic/ClimateChangeold/effects/security/resource/resource">resource scarcity</a>.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Avengers: Endgame Official Trailer.</span></figcaption>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/avengers-endgame-exploits-time-travel-and-quantum-mechanics-as-it-tries-to-restore-the-universe-115705">Avengers: Endgame exploits time travel and quantum mechanics as it tries to restore the universe</a>
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<h2>‘Relative abundance’</h2>
<p>When Thanos snapped his fingers, he performed what 18th century scholar <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/318430.An_Essay_on_the_Principle_of_Population">Thomas Robert Malthus</a> called a “positive check” on the population. Positive checks, like Thanos’s snap, increase the death rate to reduce population to a <a href="https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10.1098/rspb.2012.2845">sustainable level</a>. </p>
<p>Malthus argued that population collapse and environmental degradation occurred when there were too many people and not enough food. This is when positive checks – such as famine, plague, war, and natural disaster – would occur.</p>
<p>However, he argued that, once population size fell, strain on the environment eased, and population would <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/313544569_Thomas_Malthus_Ester_Boserup_and_Agricultural_Development_Models_in_the_Age_of_Limits">increase to suit the amount of available resources </a>.</p>
<p>Thanos assumed that halving population size would solve resource over-exploitation. But according to Malthus, as resources suddenly become abundant, the population of 3.5 billion people at the start of Endgame would inevitably grow again.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/a-country-can-never-be-too-rich-too-beautiful-or-too-full-of-people-115214">A country can never be too rich, too beautiful or too full of people</a>
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<h2>The politics of distribution</h2>
<p>Thanos also overlooked the influence of social, political, and economic processes on access to resources – known as the “distributional” argument for explaining resource scarcity.</p>
<p>Average <a href="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/food-supply-by-region-kilocalories?time=1961..2013">global supply of food</a> exceeds the <a href="http://www.fao.org/3/y5686e/y5686e00.htm">minimum dietary energy requirement globally</a>, which shows that the world can produce enough food, but that <a href="https://www.elementascience.org/articles/10.1525/elementa.310/">food isn’t reaching everyone who needs it</a>. Uneven access – rather than overpopulation – is the problem. </p>
<p>When explaining his reasoning, Thanos noted that the snap would be “at random, dispassionate, fair to rich and poor alike”.</p>
<p>However, removing half of everyone who is rich and poor doesn’t address the underlying reasons for wealth inequity. The disparities which created inequitable distribution of food and other resources will persist, and the same patterns of resource use and access are likely to continue. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/271362/original/file-20190429-194637-saya7c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/271362/original/file-20190429-194637-saya7c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/271362/original/file-20190429-194637-saya7c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=316&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/271362/original/file-20190429-194637-saya7c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=316&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/271362/original/file-20190429-194637-saya7c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=316&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/271362/original/file-20190429-194637-saya7c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/271362/original/file-20190429-194637-saya7c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/271362/original/file-20190429-194637-saya7c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Supervillain Thanos assumed that halving the population of the universe would create a better world.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Marvel Studios/IMDB</span></span>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-to-feed-a-growing-population-healthy-food-without-ruining-the-planet-108994">How to feed a growing population healthy food without ruining the planet</a>
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<p>Similarly, a “political ecology” perspective argues that those with the greatest economic and political power often get to control how the environment is used, and <a href="https://uapress.arizona.edu/book/nature-inc">how resources are distributed</a>, typically at the expense of disadvantaged groups.</p>
<p>We see this in the ongoing <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/oct/25/famine-in-yemen-could-become-one-of-worst-in-living-memory-un-says">civil war in Yemen</a>, where fighting has blocked aid shipments, food prices have doubled, and <a href="https://pulitzercenter.org/reporting/ap-investigation-food-aid-stolen-yemen-starves">food has been stolen</a> by those with greatest access to resources. </p>
<p>Food insecurity and hunger <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352827316300982">among marginalised populations</a> can occur even within affluent, industrialised societies.</p>
<p>In <a href="https://www.hhrjournal.org/2016/11/australias-efforts-to-improve-food-security-for-aboriginal-and-torres-strait-islander-peoples/">some Indigenous communities</a> in Australia, for example, traditional diets and methods of food production and gathering have been replaced with processed foods popular on globalised markets, which often offer lower quality diets. To counter such detrimental forces of globalisation, many Indigenous communities are <a href="https://sustainablefoodtrust.org/articles/aboriginal-foodways-towards-a-return-of-native-food-in-australia/">shifting focus back to traditional practices</a>. </p>
<h2>Creating paradise?</h2>
<p>In Endgame, our heroes find that the underlying challenges which created the conditions for resource overuse persist. There might be whales in New York Bay because there are fewer ships, as Captain America notes, but Hawkeye (the archer and one of the original Avengers) is still fighting systems that generate injustice and exploitation in Tokyo. </p>
<p>Today, there are plenty of scholars working alternative solutions to resource scarcity, imagining a world that is sustainable for everyone.</p>
<p>Instead of halving the population, for example, Thanos could have created a universe built on <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/renewable-agriculture-and-food-systems/article/food-security-in-the-context-of-energy-and-resource-depletion-sustainable-agriculture-in-developing-countries/476EAA8851D24E90A777DCDC8854E9F6">local food production</a>.</p>
<p>Or, he could have made each planet in the universe a series of <a href="https://www.nature.com/news/the-circular-economy-1.19594">circular economies</a>, which minimise waste by maintaining, reusing, recycling, and remanufacturing resources. </p>
<p>All energy could have instantly been produced by <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301421512009512">low carbon sources</a> within sustainable energy grids and power infrastructure. </p>
<p>Or the universe could have been reshaped to exist within the <a href="https://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/oxpp/oppccr/2012/00000008/00000001/art00001">safe and just space for humanity</a>, in which we would exert enough pressure on the earth for everyone to live free of poverty, while keeping resource use within planetary boundaries to prevent overexploitation of those resources. </p>
<p>Surely this could get us closer to the paradise Thanos envisioned than a terrified planet with half as many people and just as many issues.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/116070/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Marvel villain Thanos wiped out half the universe’s population to create paradise. But as the Avengers find out in Endgame, solving resource scarcity is not that simple.Chelsea Mullens, PhD candidate in the School of Ecosystem and Forest Sciences, The University of MelbourneWolfram Dressler, Senior Fellow, Development Geography, The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/987972018-07-09T10:28:04Z2018-07-09T10:28:04Z7.5 billion and counting: How many humans can the Earth support?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/224723/original/file-20180625-19404-sh2aw5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Slums in Caracas, Venezuela.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Petare_Slums_in_Caracas.jpg">Wikimedia</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Humans are the most populous large mammal on Earth today, and probably in all of geological history. This <a href="https://www.un.org/en/events/populationday/">World Population Day</a>, humans number in the vicinity of <a href="https://www.census.gov/popclock/world">7.5</a> to <a href="http://www.worldometers.info/world-population/">7.6 billion</a> individuals.</p>
<p>Can the Earth support this many people indefinitely? What will happen if we do nothing to manage future population growth and total resource use? These complex questions are ecological, political, ethical – and urgent. Simple mathematics shows why, shedding light on our species’ ecological footprint.</p>
<h2>The mathematics of population growth</h2>
<p>In an environment with unlimited natural resources, population size <a href="https://www.nature.com/scitable/knowledge/library/how-populations-grow-the-exponential-and-logistic-13240157">grows exponentially</a>. One characteristic feature of exponential growth is the time a population takes to double in size.</p>
<p><iframe id="j2j8M" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/j2j8M/3/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p>Exponential growth tends to start slowly, sneaking up before ballooning in just a few doublings.</p>
<p>To illustrate, suppose Jeff Bezos agreed to give you one penny on Jan. 1, 2019, two pennies on Feb. 1, four on March 1, and so forth, with the payment doubling each month. How long would his $100 billion fortune uphold the contract? Take a moment to ponder and guess.</p>
<p>After one year, or 12 payments, your total contract receipts come to US$40.95, equivalent to a night at the movies. After two years, $167,772.15 – substantial, but paltry to a billionaire. After three years, $687,194,767.35, or about one week of Bezos’ 2017 income. </p>
<p>The 43rd payment, on July 1, 2022, just short of $88 billion and equal to all the preceding payments together (plus one penny), breaks the bank.</p>
<h2>Real population growth</h2>
<p>For real populations, doubling time is not constant. Humans <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_growth">reached 1 billion around 1800</a>, a doubling time of about 300 years; 2 billion in 1927, a doubling time of 127 years; and 4 billion in 1974, a doubling time of 47 years.</p>
<p>On the other hand, world numbers are projected to reach 8 billion around 2023, a doubling time of 49 years, and barring the unforeseen, expected to <a href="https://esa.un.org/unpd/wpp/">level off</a> around 10 to 12 billion by 2100.</p>
<p>This anticipated leveling off signals a harsh biological reality: Human population is being curtailed by the Earth’s <a href="https://www.britannica.com/science/carrying-capacity">carrying capacity</a>, the population at which premature death by starvation and disease balances the birth rate.</p>
<p><iframe id="cimbX" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/cimbX/4/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<h2>Ecological implications</h2>
<p>Humans are consuming and polluting resources – aquifers and ice caps, fertile soil, forests, fisheries and oceans – accumulated over geological time, tens of thousands of years or longer.</p>
<p>Wealthy countries <a href="http://atlas.aaas.org/index.php?part=2">consume out of proportion to their populations</a>. As a fiscal analogy, we live as if our savings account balance were steady income.</p>
<p>According to the Worldwatch Institute, an environmental think tank, the Earth has <a href="http://www.worldwatch.org/node/810#4">1.9 hectares</a> of land per person for growing food and textiles for clothing, supplying wood and absorbing waste. The average American uses about 9.7 hectares.</p>
<p>These data alone suggest the Earth can support at most one-fifth of the present population, 1.5 billion people, at an American standard of living. </p>
<p>Water is vital. Biologically, an adult human needs less than 1 gallon of water daily. In 2010, the U.S. used <a href="https://water.usgs.gov/edu/wateruse-total.html">355 billion gallons</a> of freshwater, over 1,000 gallons (4,000 liters) per person per day. Half was used to generate electricity, one-third for irrigation, and roughly one-tenth for household use: flushing toilets, washing clothes and dishes, and watering lawns.</p>
<p>If 7.5 billion people consumed water at American levels, world usage would top 10,000 cubic kilometers per year. Total world supply – freshwater lakes and rivers – is about <a href="https://water.usgs.gov/edu/earthwherewater.html">91,000 cubic kilometers</a>.</p>
<p>World Health Organization figures show <a href="http://www.who.int/news-room/detail/12-07-2017-2-1-billion-people-lack-safe-drinking-water-at-home-more-than-twice-as-many-lack-safe-sanitation">2.1 billion people lack ready access to safe drinking water</a>, and 4.5 billion lack managed sanitation. Even in industrialized countries, water sources can be contaminated with pathogens, fertilizer and insecticide runoff, heavy metals and fracking effluent.</p>
<h2>Freedom to choose</h2>
<p>Though the detailed future of the human species is impossible to predict, basic facts are certain. Water and food are immediate human necessities. Doubling food production would defer the problems of present-day birth rates by at most a few decades. The Earth supports industrialized standards of living only because we are drawing down the “savings account” of non-renewable resources, including fertile topsoil, drinkable water, forests, fisheries and petroleum.</p>
<p>The drive to reproduce is among the strongest desires, both for couples and for societies. How will humans reshape one of our most cherished expectations – “Be fruitful and multiply” – in the span of one generation? What will happen if present-day birth rates continue?</p>
<p>Population stays constant when couples have <a href="http://www.searo.who.int/entity/health_situation_trends/data/chi/TFR/en/">about two children</a> who survive to reproductive age. In some parts of the developing world today, couples average <a href="https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/fields/2127.html">three to six children</a>. </p>
<p>We cannot wish natural resources into existence. Couples, however, have the freedom to choose how many children to have. Improvements in women’s rights, education and self-determination generally lead to <a href="http://blogs.worldbank.org/health/female-education-and-childbearing-closer-look-data">lower birth rates</a>.</p>
<p>As a mathematician, I believe reducing birth rates substantially is our best prospect for raising global standards of living. As a citizen, I believe nudging human behavior, by encouraging smaller families, is our most humane hope.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/98797/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Andrew D. Hwang does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The global population is climbing faster and faster. What will this mean for future generations?Andrew D. Hwang, Associate Professor of Mathematics, College of the Holy CrossLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/543502016-02-09T04:32:34Z2016-02-09T04:32:34ZDeepening inequality is the high price students will pay for free education<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/110599/original/image-20160208-2634-dny9vw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Students have been steadfast in their demands of universities and the South African government. But what might the unintended consequences be?</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Nic Bothma/EPA</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>University students have scored some massive victories since <a href="https://theconversation.com/student-protests-give-south-africans-a-glimpse-into-hidden-lives-49959">“fees must fall”</a> entered South Africa’s lexicon. They have secured <a href="http://www.dhetnews.co.za/statement-on-2016-funding-allocation/">more government funding</a> for fees. They have forced universities to address a <a href="https://theconversation.com/fee-protests-point-to-a-much-deeper-problem-at-south-african-universities-49456">complex range</a> of <a href="https://www.enca.com/south-africa/pretoria-university-workers-celebrate-victory">institutional inequalities</a>.</p>
<p>This #FeesMustFall movement has become a force for social change centred around access to and free tertiary education. It demands deep transformation in all sectors of the higher education landscape and, in essence, encompasses broader societal issues of social justice and equality. </p>
<p>The gains students have made don’t just hold the government and <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-african-students-and-universities-may-now-be-trapped-in-a-cycle-of-conflict-49687">university management</a> accountable. They also speak to the “will of the people”, the public good, and robust democratic processes in South Africa.</p>
<p>But herein lies the problem: transformation, or social change, has a dynamic of its own. This makes it an unpredictable, uncontrollable and unknowable force – one with often unintended consequences.</p>
<h2>The law of unintended consequences</h2>
<p>Psychology professor Robert Kurzban likes to tell the story of <a href="http://edge.org/response-detail/10309">what happened</a> when bubonic plague reached an Australian neighbourhood, The Rocks, in 1900. Rats carry the fleas that transmit the plague to humans. Local authorities offered a reward to residents for every rat killed. The unintended consequence? People tempted by this bounty actually started breeding rats.</p>
<p>This illustrates that when people effect social change by intervening in complex, dynamic systems with many parts, especially economies, it disrupts the complex web of interrelationships. This has unforeseen and unforeseeable consequences that are not anticipated by politicians or popular opinion.</p>
<p>So what’s the unintended consequence of the #FeesMustFall movement’s victories? Quite simply, the substantial resources universities must direct at fee shortfalls in both the immediate and long term will become increasingly problematic for government and the ailing South African economy. </p>
<h2>The psychology of scarcity</h2>
<p>These resource struggles are going to impose critical limitations on universities’ academic projects. Efforts will be concentrated on maintenance, and even survival, rather than growth and advancement. </p>
<p>Universities started the 2016 academic year talking about <a href="http://www.bdlive.co.za/opinion/2016/01/14/sas-universities-need-funding-hike-of-about-r30bn-a-year-to-survive">scarcity</a>. The <a href="https://www.wits.ac.za/news/latest-news/in-their-own-words/2016/2016-01/reimagining-the-south-african-university-and-critically-analysing-the-struggle-for-its-realisation.html">dominant discourse</a>
centres on budget constraints, post freezes, arrested projects, salary containment, affordability reviews – that is, whether courses are viable and sustainable – <a href="http://www.universitiessa.ac.za/sites/www.universitiessa.ac.za/files/2009%20-%20HESA%20Report%20on%20Third%20Stream%20Report_July%2009_0.pdf">third-stream income</a> and rising university debt.</p>
<p>The <a href="http://scholar.harvard.edu/sendhil/scarcity">“scarcity mindset”</a> is a significant area of behavioural research in economics, psychology and public policy. It highlights the adverse impact of scarce resources like time and money on mental states and social and physical environments. Scarcity is all-consuming. It imposes cognitive deficits and activates destructive emotional states of anxiety and fear.</p>
<p>It also narrows the worldviews of individuals and institutions, creating a myopic concentration on immediate gains. There’s no room in this tunnel vision for creative problem solving, innovative planning and deliberate decision-making.</p>
<p>Universities are spaces where the freedom of critical enquiry, expression and debate are fundamental principles. In <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/universityeducation/12094277/Cecil-Rhodes-Oxford-University-students-must-confront-views-they-find-objectionable-says-new-head.html">the words</a> of Oxford University’s Chancellor Lord Patten of Barnes, nobody wants them to become:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>… a drab, bland, suburb of the soul where the diet is intellectual porridge.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Free education or quality education?</h2>
<p>Now South Africa’s universities are tightening their belts at a time when they actually need <em>more</em> resources to address the <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-south-africa-can-disrupt-its-deeply-rooted-educational-inequality-48531">extensive</a> teaching and learning challenges of a <a href="https://theconversation.com/factcheck-is-south-africa-the-most-unequal-society-in-the-world-48334">deeply divided</a> society. </p>
<p>Universities ought to be involved in a range of innovative, professional teaching, learning and research activities. They can do important work in areas like curriculum design, educational technologies, sustainable infrastructure, internationalisation and technical support.</p>
<p>They are also expected to produce global, critical thinkers. These graduates can contribute to a knowledge society, drive the economy and enhance democratic citizenship. Universities that narrow their focus to make ends meet and have only scarce resources cannot fulfil these important roles.</p>
<p>Scarcity means that some academic goals will have to be sacrificed at the expense of others. Universities, which are already dealing with a multiplicity of competing needs and demands, will now be under pressure to choose how and where they allocate scarce resources. </p>
<p>Educationalists have <a href="http://hsf.org.za/resource-centre/focus/focus-76-the-idea-of-a-university/the-challenges-of-undergraduate-education-looking-back-and-ahead-elizabeth-de-kadt/view">warned</a> that these relentless, growing pressures may lead to a “quality collapse”. These are the unforeseen consequences of the #FeesMustFall movement’s demands and gains.</p>
<h2>Collateral damage – the trade-off</h2>
<p>Students actually risk becoming collateral damage if this climate of scarcity forces a trade off between quality education or free education. They’ll be the unintended targets of discriminatory and exclusionary practices amid a crisis in higher education.</p>
<p>Graduates without the requisite knowledge, skills and values will not have access to the competitive “world of work”. And this will further entrench inequality and injustice in South Africa.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/54350/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lyn Snodgrass does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Social change has its own dynamic. This makes it an unpredictable, uncontrollable and unknowable force – one with often unintended consequences.Lyn Snodgrass, Associate Professor and Head of Department of Political and Conflict Studies, Nelson Mandela UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/479122015-10-05T09:32:58Z2015-10-05T09:32:58ZFrom Sophocles to Sherlock: economics, literature and the detective story<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/97163/original/image-20151005-29754-1h658z3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">What does economics have to do with a revolver? </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Book revolver via www.shutterstock.com</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>If you read or watch detective stories, you probably don’t think about them as an expression of economic principles.</p>
<p>But at their heart, that’s exactly what they are. And it’s not just detective stories, but works of fictions of all genres are brimming with economic ideas, from supply and demand to marginal cost. </p>
<p>My fascination with the connection between economics and literature began in 1964 while doing research on Jane Austen’s Persuasion. One <a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/41205052?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents">scholarly source</a> I read at the time argued that the language of the novel drew from the <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/08/the-economics-of-jane-austen/375486/">terminology of economics</a>, shaping the metaphors of the financial/romantic negotiations underlying the story.</p>
<p>Soon after, I read Robert Heinlein’s The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress and learned the expression, “There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch” – referring to opportunity costs, the principle that everything you get costs something. I was hooked. </p>
<h2>Economics and literature</h2>
<p>Some economic principles were easy to discover in literature. <a href="http://www.investopedia.com/terms/o/opportunitycost.asp">Opportunity cost</a>, for example, is also a crucial idea in Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar. The main character descends into depression upon realizing she cannot have everything. </p>
<p>Or, in the great American drama The Piano Lesson, by August Wilson, a brother and sister fight over the disposition of a piano – for her a precious family legacy, for him something to sell to buy the land on which his family was enslaved.</p>
<p>How about scarcity, one of the 51 key economics concepts taught to high school students? The Mad Max movies, with their struggles over fuel and food, come to mind. So does Linda Greenlaw’s The Hungry Ocean, which is practically a course in economics in itself, covering issues such as supply and demand, property rights (and “<a href="http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/TragedyoftheCommons.html">the tragedy of the commons</a>”), costs of labor and – that all-time favorite – margins: marginal costs of fuel, time, labor, vs the marginal reward of that last fish.</p>
<p>The list goes on, from the risks of lending as told by Shakespeare in The Merchant of Venice, to the rise of the middle class as a background issue in The Canterbury Tales, to virtually everything in Charles Dickens.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/97172/original/image-20151005-11305-2zvidc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/97172/original/image-20151005-11305-2zvidc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/97172/original/image-20151005-11305-2zvidc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=664&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/97172/original/image-20151005-11305-2zvidc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=664&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/97172/original/image-20151005-11305-2zvidc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=664&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/97172/original/image-20151005-11305-2zvidc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=834&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/97172/original/image-20151005-11305-2zvidc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=834&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/97172/original/image-20151005-11305-2zvidc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=834&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Sherlock becomes one with the criminal to solve the crime.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Sherlock statue via www.shutterstock.com</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Information asymmetry and the detective story</h2>
<p>But what of information asymmetry, a concept that posits that some negotiations are unfair because one party has more information than the other? (Think used car salesman.) </p>
<p>Because it’s not a part of classic economics, it wasn’t defined until the 1970s, when it <a href="http://siteresources.worldbank.org/DEC/Resources/84797-1114437274304/Asymmetric_Info_Sep2003.pdf">revolutionized</a> the field thanks to the work of George Akerlof, Michael Spence and Joseph Stiglitz, who won the Nobel Prize for their research in 2001. </p>
<p>Since it’s a relatively new concept, no obvious literary example comes to mind. </p>
<p>Except, of course, the detective story.</p>
<p>And the detective story isn’t merely about economics; in some ways it <em>is</em> economics, following many of the same thought structures. It foreshadowed those economists’ work centuries before they won the Nobel. </p>
<p>In almost all detective stories, a crime has been committed, with social order disrupted. The criminal has all the information; the detective and reader have none. </p>
<p>Don’t we think of the economist as a kind a sleuth, unraveling the mysteries of what went wrong with our money, where the jobs disappeared? Economists are still trying to unravel the underlying secrets of the Great Depression.</p>
<p>The process, or plot, of the detective story is for the detective – the reader’s agent – to follow the clues and bring his information set into balance with that of the criminal, who is often in a position of power. The detective employs intellect, sometimes brute force. When he solves the crime, he restores order.</p>
<p>William Breit and Kenneth G Elzinga, who write economic-detective novels under the pen name Marshall Jevons, wrote a <a href="http://www.iei.liu.se/nek/730A17/artiklar/1.283067/Detectivestory.pdf">parallel analysis</a> that argues that “all good economic analysis is structured like classical detective fiction.”</p>
<h2>From Oedipus to True Detective</h2>
<p>Sophocles’ Oedipus the King is often thought of as the <a href="http://hufind.huji.ac.il/Record/HUJ001926771/TOC">original detective story</a>. Written in the fifth century BCE, today it seems almost postmodern – the detective and the killer are identical. Like the modern detective, Oedipus tries to uncover the murderer by searching for evidence and questioning witnesses.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/97170/original/image-20151005-11302-4ziu69.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/97170/original/image-20151005-11302-4ziu69.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=859&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/97170/original/image-20151005-11302-4ziu69.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=859&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/97170/original/image-20151005-11302-4ziu69.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=859&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/97170/original/image-20151005-11302-4ziu69.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1079&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/97170/original/image-20151005-11302-4ziu69.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1079&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/97170/original/image-20151005-11302-4ziu69.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1079&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Oedipus Rex, written 2,500 years ago, seems almost post-modern.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Oedipus Rex via www.shutterstock.com</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>We marvel at Sherlock Holmes because in order to set things right, he forces his own mind to become one with the mind of the criminal – a kind of insane symmetry. </p>
<p>The form of the detective story varies. The English drawing room mystery is the simplest. The characters are mostly one-dimensional and disposable. The reader doesn’t care if the corpse belongs to the duchess or the industrialist. The focus is the puzzle. One of the principles is that the reader tries to figure out “whodunit.” To outthink the detective. At the end, everything is made neat.</p>
<p>In a famous variant, the viewer knows from the beginning nearly as much as the murderer, but the detective does not. Maybe you’ve watched Columbo and felt the tension as he closes in on your own secret knowledge of the crime.</p>
<p>The CTV detective series Motive plays off of the Columbo innovation by showing us the killer and the victim before the crime is committed. We know who did it; the police have to discover who; we both have to discover why.</p>
<p>Speaking of cops, the police procedural, such as the Law & Order or CSI franchises, is the most methodical, systematic, even scientific attempt to restore order by gaining knowledge.</p>
<p>Postmodern versions of the detective story include Mark Smith’s The Death of the Detective, in which the detective loses his way, seeming to cause the crimes he is trying to solve. Even more complex is Alain Robbe-Grillet’s The Erasers, which subverts every detective story trope from narrative line, to the motive, to the contrast between killer and detective. Paul Auster’s The New York Trilogy conflates the detective with the writer of the mystery. At the conclusion of the 1975 film Night Moves, Gene Hackman’s detective, destroyed by what he has learned, is left literally circling in a vast ocean. </p>
<p>The most disturbing popular version of the detective story is the noir mystery, associated with hard-boiled detectives like Sam Spade, Philip Marlowe and Lew Archer. In this version, the world wasn’t right before the opening lines, and it is not set completely right at the end. The detective’s – and the reader’s – curiosity is satisfied, but the sleuth’s sense of justice, and the reader’s sense of wrong being set right, is not. </p>
<p>The noir mystery is set in a dark, corrupt world – a kind of broken creation. The detective is tasked to find something or someone, but even the person hiring/assigning him is suspicious and deliberately withholds information. Thus, the detective is searching on multiple levels, trying to work his way out of a labyrinth. When he unravels the mystery, what he finds is more darkness.</p>
<p>If the economist searching for answers attempts to control variables, the detective must attempt do the same, but the contemporary detective has even less control in a universe that is spinning about him.</p>
<p>We can look at HBO’s True Detective by way of this last model. In each season’s narrative, the world is not right from the start. The detectives set out to resolve their cases, but the correct conclusion is subverted by powerful men who influence the detectives’ bosses. The detectives finally find and punish the murderers, but the people who protected them are still in power. The detectives and the viewer have almost complete knowledge of who did what, but that makes no difference. We stew in a rotten world.</p>
<h2>The end of detectives?</h2>
<p>What might economists make of all the snooping and sleuthing by the fictional detective?</p>
<p>Alex Tabarrok and Tyler Cowen, economists at George Mason University, <a href="http://www.cato-unbound.org/2015/04/06/alex-tabarrok-tyler-cowen/end-asymmetric-information">have recently argued</a> that the wealth of information now available makes information asymmetry a thing of the past. Everyone becomes his or her own detective because there is some version of Carfax for everything – whether uncovering the history of a used car or a potential lover – there are no secrets. Might that new reality make the detective story go away?</p>
<p>No. In literature, as in life, there is always information asymmetry. The ultimate question at the heart of the detective story and, in fact, all of literature is: who am I and what does all this mean? For such an inquiry, there is never enough information. The search for clues never ends.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/47912/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Frank Edmund Smith does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Works of fiction are brimming with economic principles, but perhaps none more so than the detective story.Frank Edmund Smith, Professor Emeritus of English Literature, Harper CollegeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.