We all saw it at grocery stores in 2020. The shelves, once brimming with toilet paper and hand soap, were bare. We hid in our homes, deep-cleaning every surface, occasionally braving the threat of COVID-19 to hunt down the last remaining bottle of hand sanitizer in a 50-mile radius. We felt out of control, so we controlled what we could: the contents of our kitchens and bathroom cabinets.
Today, this fear of scarcity plays out differently, due to rising prices, a volatile stock market and whispers of a looming recession. We’ve simply rolled one set of worries into another, continuing to assume all our resources are scarce, whether that’s true for us or not.
