Mainstream modern narratives have long regarded the elimination of resource scarcity as the ultimate solution to social conflict and the key to human emancipation (Robbins, 1932; Samuelson, 1948; Bastani, 2019). This paper challenges that linear assumption and proposes an inverse proposition: scarcity is not only a source of conflict but also a necessary condition for social cooperation and the construction of civilizational order. Using theoretical deduction and integrating findings from evolutionary biology, neuroscience, social psychology, game theory, and political philosophy, this paper constructs an analytical framework of "scarcity–order–violence" as a symbiotic system. It argues that the systematic dissolution of existential scarcity will erode the utilitarian foundation of reciprocal cooperation, dismantle the reward-punishment mechanisms that constrain behavior, and potentially activate non-utilitarian violent potentials inherited from human evolution (Wrangham Panksepp, 1998; Sapolsky, 2017; Tremblay et al., 2004). Employing the "broken windows" theory as a social dynamic mechanism (Wilson Keizer et al., 2008), the paper further analyzes the diffusion path from local anomie to systemic order collapse. Against the optimistic expectation that "security scarcity will give birth to a new order," this paper uses game theory to show that what is more likely to emerge is a "dark forest state" — a condition of collapsed trust where preemptive attack becomes a rational choice, and one that is irreversible because it structurally destroys the very preconditions for cooperation (Axelrod, 1984; Hobbes, 1651; Liu, 2008). The paper further identifies two contemporary phenomena — the dissolution of reciprocity among homeless populations in the United States (Gowan, 2010; Desmond, 2016; Snow & Anderson, 1993) and the meaning vacuum and order detachment in Chinese otaku subculture — as low-threshold signals of the same theoretical logic. As a theoretical study using thought experiments and empirical echoes, the value of this paper lies in revealing a deep civilizational tension obscured by mainstream narratives and providing a precautionary analytical framework for understanding present and future social risks.
Jiacheng Yang (Thu,) studied this question.