"Scarcity by Design"

"When access is limited by design, the dream you chase becomes an illusion."

Wondering on the thought of the word scarcity really doesn't come up in talks amongst many groups, but if you take a deep dive into the what it really means and how more than once in our lifetime we have thought about the lack of what we are thinking around our own life. Lack of relationships, money, possessions, food, and lack of faith in our life. Now let's take a somewhat deep dive into a phase "Scarcity by Design"

We feel scarcity everywhere. The anxiety of bills looming after payday evaporates. The "out of stock" sign where fresh produce should be. The waiting list for affordable housing longer than a lifetime wait at the DMV. The take you to the next level in your career "good job" that seems out of reach. We're told scarcity is natural meaning resources are limited, life is tough. But what if much of this scarcity isn't an accident of nature or simple economics? What if it’s by design?

"Scarcity by Design" isn't just about things being scarce; it's about systems, structures, and choices deliberately engineered to create and maintain shortage for some, while ensuring abundance for others. It's the invisible architecture shaping our reality, funneling resources, opportunities, and power in predictable, often unjust, ways.

The Hidden Architecture of "Not Enough"

Scarcity is rarely just about the absence of resources. More often, it’s about the distribution of access. The feeling of “not enough” is frequently constructed, layer by layer, policy by policy, decision by decision. And just like a building, it can be designed to exclude. Whether it’s housing, healthcare, education, or opportunity, the systems we navigate every day often embed scarcity not by accident, but by design.

Lets review.

Technology’s Attention Economy

Apps like (TikTok, Instagram, YouTube) use algorithms designed to maximize "time on device." Notifications, autoplay, infinite scroll all scientifically engineered to steal your focus.

Healthcare Access

In many countries, particularly the U.S., healthcare operates under a scarcity model in which insurance coverage is tied to employment or high premiums, life-saving medications are priced far above cost, and the healthcare system is structured to prioritize profit over access. Care exists, but it's made scarce for those who can't pay, often forcing people to delay or skip necessary treatment.

Education Opportunity

Students in wealthier neighborhoods often have access to better-funded schools, AP courses, and extracurriculars, while others face overcrowded classrooms and outdated resources. Public school funding is tied to property taxes, reinforcing inequality. Opportunity becomes limited not by talent, but by zip code of that boundary drawn by policy.

Time for Rest and Leisure

Many people work multiple jobs or long hours to meet basic needs, with little time left for rest, family, or creativity. Meanwhile, productivity culture glorifies constant output. Social media floods us with influencers "monetizing every minute." Leisure feels like laziness. Free time becomes a scarcity failure. Wage stagnation, lack of support systems, and social pressure to be constantly “on the grind” have created a world where time itself feels rare especially for the working class or everyone for that matter that works in these times.

When scarcity is embedded into systems, it changes how people behave. It breeds competition instead of collaboration. It teaches us to hoard, to fear, to believe that someone else’s gain must be our loss.

Psychological toll, the weight of designed lack which links to constant insecurity isn’t just exhausting it can be cognitively crippling. Studies show poverty reduces IQ, equivalent to chronic sleeplessness. Why? The brain consumed by survival has no bandwidth to plan, learn, or resist.

It also limits imagination. When people grow up within scarcity-based systems, they begin to internalize it as normal or even natural. We stop asking, “Why is this limited?” and start believing, “There’s never enough.”

But that belief is exactly what keeps the system in place.

If scarcity can be designed, then so can abundance. In a world overflowing with creativity, resources, and technological advancement, it’s easy to forget that many of the limits we experience each day are not inevitable there by design. Scarcity, in many forms, doesn’t just happen. It’s built, reinforced, and maintained through systems, policies, and priorities that benefit a few while restricting the many.

Scarcity is often structural, not natural and we see it everywhere. Take for example a city with vacant luxury apartments and people sleeping on the street and shelves stocked with food, while families go hungry.

Now let's look into money moves where power directs it. Consider what has happened previously and right now, artificial monopolies (companies charging more for products), debt traps (payday loans at 400% APR, ensuring more poverty) and labor suppression (keeping unemployment high to weaken wages).

Shifting the mindset to abundance is a start. Abundance doesn’t just mean excess or waste. It means enough for everyone. It means systems built on trust, access, and sustainability rather than fear and competition. Designing abundance means building environments where people don’t have to fight for basic needs and where thriving is not a privilege, but a collective goal. Abundance thinking invites innovation not for innovation’s sake.

You influence how resources are distributed, how ideas are shared, and how people experience access, opportunity, and community. If abundance can be imagined, it can be made real.

Final Thought:

Scarcity by design isn’t just a flaw in the system, it’s often the system itself. But if design can limit, then we can reimagine and expand on what's possible for everyone. The challenge, and opportunity, lies in choosing to create structures that expand access, dignity, and possibility rather than withhold them.