The core ideas are insightful (accounting for cognitive burden associated with insufficient resources, while also leveraging those same bandwidth constraints to influence behaviors for individuals and organizations), but largely repetitive and occasionally lacking in sufficient academic justification. A good complement to Thaler and Sunstein's "Nudge." ( )

A clearly written and oddly funny examination of the effects of scarcity on human behavior. They are mindful that a scarcity of money is far more crucial and devastating than the scarcity of time suffered by busy but well-off professionals, but they make a good case that there really are some parallel causes and effects in either case. ( )

Instead of doing something meaningful to stem the horrific side effects of global capitalism and colonialism (which are greatly detailed in this book), let's just find some life hacks to mitigate the worst effects of poverty. ( )

A book I would read again. ( )

I finally got to it because it’s been sitting on my bookshelf unread for far too long, and I noticed an increase in the mention of “scarcity mindset” in common parlance.

The basic premise is as follows: out of inadequate economic conditions emerges a scarcity mindset that leads to “tunneling,” which then worsens the condition within which a person is trapped. Scarcity is a common denominator in human behaviors which we understand to perpetuate negative social and economic outcomes. The key is that it’s the context that gives rise to it; it’s not an inherent, predetermined condition of a given individual.

The book is largely based on studies in the fields of behavioral economics and cognitive psychology. The authors give plenty of anecdotes to drive the point, in addition to their research interpretations, making it an inviting read.

Even as they argue the importance of the context, there is no structural analysis nor is there any mention of how scarcity afflicts different social categories differently. A universalist view of social reality with a focus on the patterns individual behaviors.

Easy read, interesting concepts, worth a quick browse. ( )