What If Economics Was Built on Generosity, Not Scarcity?

Everything is a bit too much right now—too much climate change, too much AI, too many fads. We love our pretty words and jargon, wrapping ourselves in the comfort of concepts that sometimes feel empty. And in the midst of all this, a book—just a book—can be the best form of solace in this madness we call the world, that we call society.

I've been ignoring the book sitting on my shelf, letting it gather dust in the background of my overburdened mind. All the intellectuals in my circle have read it, and pondered over it. I've been too intimidated by the sheer size of the book. But today, I picked it up. I didn’t want to start in order, so I began with Chapter 2 of Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari.

And I realised two things: 1) I should have tried to read this before, and 2) if you keep repeating something over and over again, it becomes an ingrained reality. A belief, a truth, a certainty. It may or may not have any objective reality, but it becomes far more

Maybe that is why we continue with bad jobs, bad relationships, bad habits. Because we have told ourselves the same story so many times that it feels impossible to undo. I mean, look at where we are—all inequities have been caused by greed or dependencies because someone said "Hey, there isn’t enough of this" or "You will die without it."

And this belief doesn’t just dictate our personal lives—it forms the foundation of entire economic systems.

What if we rewrote the law of supply and demand? We've all been told that the law of supply and demand is fundamental—etched into the fabric of economics like gravity is to physics. High demand, low supply? Prices rise. Low demand, high supply? Prices drop. This equation determines everything from the price of wheat to the cost of a tech gadget. But what if it didn't? What if, at some pivotal moment in history, a well-meaning individual had decided to flip this rule on its head?

Imagine if, instead of increasing prices when demand was high, businesses had reduced them—making goods more accessible to more people. Imagine if abundance didn’t mean scarcity-driven profit but equitable distribution. What kind of world would we be living in today?

Economics, at its core, is just another shared belief system—a myth we’ve all collectively bought into. Money is valuable because we believe it is. Nations exist because we recognize their borders. Corporations hold power because we let them.

But what if, centuries ago, humanity had chosen a different economic story?

What if we had a system where scarcity didn't drive value, but innovation and accessibility did? Where wealth wasn’t concentrated by exploiting shortages, but distributed by ensuring abundance, and where markets rewarded fairness as much as they rewarded profit?

We might have seen an economy where generosity, not scarcity, determined pricing models. Would industries still have flourished? Would businesses still have been motivated to innovate? Perhaps. Perhaps not. But it’s a question worth asking.

The nature of myths:

Every economic principle we follow today—from capitalism to socialism to digital currencies—is just a construct built on collective belief. If we wanted to, we could replace the "profit at all costs" myth with something better, more sustainable, and more just. The only thing stopping us? The weight of history and the inertia of accepted norms.

Could we do it now? The world is shifting. The rise of social enterprises, ethical capitalism, universal basic income, and cooperative business models shows that our economic myths are not as rigid as we once thought. So, what’s stopping us from reimagining the fundamental laws themselves?

We are in an era where we can question everything. And maybe, just maybe, it’s time we start questioning why demand should determine price at all. Are we too deep into this myth, or is there still room to rewrite the rules?