The Necessity of Waste: Why Slack Saves You

Scarcity not only drives negative behavior (tunneling, borrowing) but also highlights efficient, adaptive behavior rooted in necessity.

The Wisdom of the Poor: Expert Trade-Off Thinkers

The experience of scarcity compels people to engage in trade-off thinking—recognizing that having one thing means giving up another.

Survey data shows that when contemplating a purchase, low-income shoppers are nearly twice as likely to report thinking about what they have to give up to buy it, compared to higher-income individuals. Because they constantly face real trade-offs, the poor become experts in the value of a dollar. They are less prone to behavioral inconsistencies documented in the broader population that often stem from judging value relative to an arbitrary context. In some ways, those experiencing scarcity behave closer to the homo economicus ideal than those with abundance.

Bees vs. Wasps: The Luxury of Slack

The key difference between those caught in the scarcity trap and those who manage abundance is slack: the unused part of a budget or schedule.

The contrast can be illustrated by nest-building insects:

1. Poor Bees: Honeybees build with scarce wax, leading them to pack carefully and tightly, with extreme precision, to conserve material. They have little slack.
2. Rich Wasps: Mud dauber wasps build with abundant mud, allowing them to build sloppily and inefficiently—they can afford slack.

The rich pack like wasps, casually and with slack, because the unused resources (space/money) are inexpensive to them. The poor pack like bees, carefully and tightly, because every resource is at a premium. Slack frees us from making trade-offs and provides room to fail, allowing mistakes to be absorbed without entailing a real sacrifice.