However, if we look more closely at this concept of unlimited wants, we
see that it is only meaningful if we ignore the dynamics of social
behaviour. Scarcity is an artificially constructed concept, which has
meaning if we are looking at an economy at a point of time, and ignoring
its dynamic potential and the role of production processes. However, if
we acknowledge that economies accumulate and grow over time, as the
classical economists and political economists do, the concept of scarcity
needs to be reconsidered. The economy grows. As an economy grows we
are creating both more output and also greater potential for future
growth. Since growth implies more is being produced, it is unclear
exactly what ‘scarcity’ means in a dynamic context. For these reasons,
political economists reject the idea that prices serve as ‘scarcity-indexes’,
and see them as serving different roles and being determined in very
different ways. This distinction was first made by Ricardo, who
distinguished non-reproducible goods, such as rare paintings and coins,
whose value and therefore price was derived from scarcity alone, from
reproducible commodities whose price, he argued, was determined by
their cost of production. By situating their analysis of pricing in a static
context which, to a large extent, ignores production and accumulation,
neoclassical economists reduce the general problem of pricing to that of
non-reproducible goods. Post-Keynesian economists, in contrast, are
concerned with the role of prices in the production process, and therefore
stress reproducibility and accumulation rather than scarcity. Where
scarcity becomes important is in the consideration of non-renewable
resources, including the environment.