Market, Scarcity, War

An Egoist principle such as Self-Preservation entails universal mutual indifference, not, as Hobbes asserts, universal war.  Conflict only arises when Demand exceeds Supply, i. e. in the case of relative Scarcity.  Likewise, so long as each Egoist party receives what they are seeking, in a market exchange there is no conflict.  But Smithian Profit-Maximization transforms a market into a Hobbesian war-zone, by creating Scarcity in an exchange, since satisfaction on each side consists in all take and no give.  That consequence of instituting Profit-Maximization as its fundamental behavioral principle is tacitly acknowledged in Smith's concern for the tendency of his system towards Monopoly. But, like Hobbes, he does not recognize that the implicated Scarcity is contingent, and that the Market is not inherently a war-zone.