The market economy of affluent societies is characterized by the provision of many technologically sophisticated commodities to large numbers of people. This high intensity market setting is governed by the principle that the economy should expand steadily and the concern that sufficient resources be available for this purpose. This paper argues that the systematic orientation of all needs toward commodities within such markets makes it difficult to determine and satisfy individual desires, intensifies the experienced scarcity of goods, and promotes a dangerously short-sighted view of the ability of the environment to absorb the resource costs of mass production.
