One problem is the term scarcity can be ambiguous because it has two meanings: one, the common meaning, is lack of abundance. Two, the technical economic meaning, is rivalrous or lack of superabundance. This is why I sometimes use conflictability to describe the second meaning as…
— Stephan Kinsella (@NSKinsella) April 1, 2026
One problem is the term scarcity can be ambiguous because it has two meanings: one, the common meaning, is lack of abundance. Two, the technical economic meaning, is rivalrous or lack of superabundance. This is why I sometimes use conflictability to describe the second meaning as it is the one that is relevant for property. stephankinsella.com/2022/01/on-con Money, like trade between people, or use or possession of a resource (a scarce means) is an economic phenomenon, not a not a legal or normative one. It has nothing to do, in principle, with ownership. stephankinsella.com/2021/04/libert To possess and use a resource does not require ownership or property rights. Crusoe on his island possess resources. He does not own it. Likewise he employs knowledge in acting. This is distinct from use and possession of resources. Both are essential, knowledge and possession of resources. see c4sif.org/2017/02/anothe Excursus: The Role of Ideas in Human Action, in propertyandfreedom.org/books/rothbard Likewise in society people engage in exchange or trade–in its bare form, this is again a merely descriptive, non-legal interaction: exchange of possession or possessed (not necessarily owned) things. If some good—a divisible commodity having units—starts being used as a medium of exchange, this is the phenomenon of money. Again this is not a legal phenomenon. Just as possession is not ownership (and is distinct from “possession” of knowledge), exchange is not necessarily legal, and money is also not necessarily bound up with ownership. In society ownership or property rights do emerge as normative support for possession of scarce resources, an added normative layer or normative support. So then we possess and own resources; trade or exchange then has a dual nature: it is the exchange of possession (descriptive) but also of ownership (normative-legal-juristic). But in its core nature money is an economic-descriptive phenomenon. stephankinsella.com/2025/04/supera Heretofore in society the type of thing that has been a “commodity” with “fungible” units that is suitable for use as money has been a material commodity like tobacco, jewelry, cigarettes, wampum, gold coins. For such things they can be possessed and physical exchanged, and they also can be owned. Now we have the emergence of a digital commodity that might serve as money: Bitcoin. It has “scarcity” in the relevance sense for money: that it has lack of abundance; so that it can possibly serve as money, and sufficient fungibility (as far as we can tell so far) to be a commodity in this sense. This does not imply bitcoin is ownable because ownability comes from some thing being conflictable, not merely “lack of abundance”. And also, as noted above, there are two main ingredients for successful action: possession of (potentially ownable) scarce resources, and of useful (non-ownable) information. Heretofore money has always emerged from the former: conflictable, possessable, scarce material commodities like gold. Thus when such physical things because used as money, the money would be possessed, and owned; and exchanged in terms of both possession and title/ownership transfer. Just because money has always been based on physical commodities in the past, the concept and nature of money does not require or depend on this, as the emergence of digital commodities like bitcoin has demonstrated. For such items the digital commodity “possessed” and “exchanged” and used as money is “possessed” in the sense that information is possessed in action, but it is not owned. Hope this clears it up. It sounds complicated but it’s really not if you just sort out the confusing loaded terms and all their accumulated baggage.
