New Word: Wanna-conomy
28th December 2014
Freeberg nails it again.
Years ago I had learned, along with many other people interested in the subject I suspect, that the forces at work in an economy are supply and demand. My learning was that they are like at opposite ends of a seesaw. If one is in ascension then the other will be in a state of descent, both of these have some effect on the price of a product or service, and eventually things will stabilize — supply, demand and price. If we’re looking at a commodity on the stock exchange, then this search for supply/demand/price stabilization will be renewed daily. Also, an abundance of the one will intensify the power exerted by the other: If many people are demanding a certain item, and there is a limited number of suppliers of it, then the price will go up. If there are many suppliers and only limited demand, conversely the price will go down. This results in signaling. An “economy,” when you study it awhile and think about it awhile, turns out to be nothing more than a network of those signals. Because of this signaling, the tendency is toward benefit for all because the supply will respond to the signals; people will labor toward creating whatever it is that other people need. They’ll move their vocations around, away from the products and services declining in price due to this signaling, toward the products and services that are becoming more precious, so that abundances are relaxed and scarcities are cured.
My new word describes, essentially, a newer economy in which this circuit is being shorted because the whims of the suppliers are unnaturally affecting the nature of demand. Retail consumer technology has devolved to become a good example of this. When a new phone comes out and people line up around the block to get hold of it, there is no tug-of-war between supply and demand because the supply is the demand. Apple made something; I want whatever it is. Have no clue what it does. I just want it.