Lack of Labor for Needed Goods

[Servia]

What if there a specific good that society needs but the labor force isn't present or a lack of interest in helping produce it?

[The Jay]

If society needs something then wouldn't society have an interest in doing it?

[ckaihatsu]

What if there a specific good that society needs but the labor force isn't present or a lack of interest in helping produce it?


This is a *blurring* of the general to the specific -- which is problematic.

If we're *only* talking about things in generalities, such as 'society' and 'labor force', then we *are* able to compare generalities at this (macro) scale validly, with a solid line of reasoning.

But as soon as we introduce some kind of *specifics* -- *any* kind -- even just as a variable, as you're doing here, then things get very complex at least, and most likely can't be readily discussed *at all*, because of the empirical fact that future specifics are simply *unknowable* from our vantage point here in the present.

With your question what comes to mind immediately is that *geography* would have a substantial impact, because 'a specific good' probably couldn't be generalized to the *entire world*, all at once. The production and availability of that good would vary by geography, at least, with many other factors involved as well.

The most appropriate response here, I think, would be to look at the *overall* political economy in operation in this scenario, and to ask from *what locations* a needed good might be sourced, and how that area of sourcing might be reciprocated in turn, with adequate production from other locations, and so on. (Meaning is the entire network of material provisioning over the whole geography of the earth complex and sufficient enough for the provisioning of any given good, to any given location -- ?)

If a particular locale's liberated labor force isn't numerically or socially adequate for the production of a needed good, we're back to the question of *scale*, and how larger-scale collectivist / centralized planning could address this kind of shortfall in a comprehensive way.