But why is it that Western cultures have so much abundance? Yes, at any given moment for any given individual, you find scarcity or abundance in the environment. But human beings overtime shift their environments. So where does the scarcity or abundance come from? what generates it? And for that matter what generates scarcity?
To answer that let's look at what a scarcity or abundance mentality generates. The first thought would be that an orientation generates that which it prefers to deal with. But that is not the way to make scarcity or abundance profitable.
To deal with abundance successfully, you find ways to use as much of the abundant material as possible you find ways to make it more valuable and useful in more situations. You make a habit of gathering me abundant material quickly and without regard to wastage. You encourage as many people as possible and make a habit of using the abundant material. You make the abundant material an artistic medium and a point of cultural pride. Do this successfully, and the abundant material will be totally ubiquitous and a foundational necessity for many processes. You keep finding more and more uses for the abundant material until finally it becomes scarce.
To prophet from scarcity you go beyond just building up stock piles. You find more efficient and more reliable ways of procuring the material. You take risks to scout out new sources of the material. To use the material sparsely and get as much out of it as you can. You find places where you can use substitutes for the scarce material. You create structures and hierarchies for controlling the flow of the material. You create a system that allows your culture to distribute the rare material in a stable equilibrium. You may or may not succeed and actually creating a surplus of the scarce material, but, in acting to respond to scarcity, you will create so much productivity that the result will be abundance.
Carmina Burana- The Wheel of Fortune
So there will be an oscillation cycle. As scarcity oriented societies create abundance and then adapt to the abundance they have created by becoming abundant orientated societies. And then the abundant orientated societies will create scarcity. And this society will adapt to the scarcity, becoming once again a scarcity oriented society. And then the cycle repeat again.
