Walk through almost any city, and you can’t help but notice the contradictions: rows of emptyapartments while people sleep on the street, extra hospital beds that won’t admit those without the“right” insurance, bins of surplus food locked or thrown out behind supermarkets. We’re told, overand over, that the problem is simply scarcity—too few resources, too little money, too few qualified workersto meet everyone’s needs.
But a closer look tells a different story. We’re not short on the essentials we need tocare for each other. What we’re short on is permission—the legal and bureaucratic sign-offs that decidewho can use resources, and who cannot.
Below, I highlight two main threads:
- How Abundance Is MadeIllegal: How gatekeeping structures actively block us from sharing what we already have, leaving us convinced we’re upagainst a perpetual shortage.
- How Direct Care is Criminalized: How laws, ordinances, and culturalnarratives punish neighbors who help one another directly—unless they do so through “officially sanctioned”channels.
When we recognize these two forces working together, we see why we don’t need an apocalypse or a
billionaire’s donation to fix things. We already possess the surplus we need. What’s holding us back is a system thatforbids us from putting it to use.
The Myth of Scarcity vs. The Reality of Withholding Permission
Have you ever wondered howsupermarket aisles can overflow with fresh produce, yet people in the same neighborhood go hungry? Or how a half-vacant hospitalfloor can refuse admission to an uninsured patient? These contradictions don’t arise from genuine lack; they arise becausesomeone—a landlord, a hospital system, a chain of grocery stores—withholds the go-ahead to share thesegoods.
Take “anti-camping” laws, which forbid people fromsleeping outdoors or providing tents to the unhoused. Or “special event” permits, requiring volunteers to jump throughlegal hoops (and often pay fees) just to hand out meals at a public park. At first glance, these measures sound practical—maybethey’re about “health codes” or “public safety.” But they essentially say, You can’t justhelp people on your own.
The moment we see that the real bottleneck isn’t a lack of resources, butrather the official denial of permission to use them, the conversation shifts. It’s no longer “How do wefind more?” but “Why aren’t we letting people share what’s already here?”
Manufactured Scarcity in Action
- Vacant apartments artificially inflate market rents,forcing families onto the street or into shelters.
- Pharmaceutical monopolies lock up drug patents,withholding lifesaving medicines from those who can’t afford high prices.
- Food waste becomesnormalized: supermarkets trash surplus goods rather than risk “liability” by giving them away.
Askyourself: “Is there truly nothing available, or is it merely kept off-limits by rules, profits, or property rights?”
You’ll quickly see how often the system blames a phantom shortage to rationalize turning people away.
The Criminalization of Direct Care
In many communities, placing a “free fridge” onyour sidewalk—where neighbors can give and take food—can trigger fines or forced removal. Building tiny shelters on yourproperty for the unhoused can violate local zoning codes. Handing out free meals in public often requires a pricey permit. Together,these rules send a clear signal: only certain licensed, government-approved, or corporately sponsored avenues can deliver aid.
Where does that mindset come from? Historically, you can trace it to colonial poor laws thatdistinguished between the “deserving” and “undeserving” poor, regulating who should receive help and how. Inthe 19th century, “vagrancy” laws outright punished many forms of grassroots assistance. The so-called Progressive Eraintroduced professional charities and bureaucratic welfare systems, overshadowing old-fashioned mutual aid among neighbors.
Fast forward to today, and that legacy remains: distributing leftover groceries oroffering makeshift shelters is likely illegal unless you jump through official hoops. It’s not a coincidence;gatekeepers worry that if everyday people realized how easily they could feed or house each other—no massivebudgets or philanthropic grants required—then the entire notion of having to pay for the right to live would start to unravel.
Gatekeepers Are Freaked Out By “Uncontrolled Kindness”
From a landlord’s perspective, if agroup can move families into vacant buildings and keep them safe, why would tenants pay exorbitant rents? From an insurer’sviewpoint, if a free neighborhood clinic can operate outside profit-driven networks, then who needs private insurance at all?Ensuring that “unauthorized help” is restricted keeps us reliant on paywalls and official channels, thereby sustainingthe myth that “we can’t afford to help everyone.”
Non-Coercive Enclaves: Building Our OwnPermission
If the real problem is that we aren’t allowed to use the surplus around us, then how do webreak free? As I discuss in Non-Coercive Systems, there’s agrowing movement of “enclaves” that reject meltdown fantasies (waiting for capitalism to collapse) or philanthropicillusions (hoping a billionaire will bail us out). Instead, these enclaves directly form local networks that share resourcesunconditionally, governed by those who actually use them.
Such efforts might be:
- Freeclinics or mental health pop-ups that refuse to bill insurance and thus bypass codified gatekeeping.
- Community fridges where you can drop off or pick up items as needed—no forms, no proof of“deservingness.”
- Tenant cooperatives that buy buildings, removing them from speculativemarkets and setting rules collectively.
The lesson is clear: we don’t have to wait forpermission. If a community organizes itself to distribute resources (food, clothes, beds) outside the usual bureaucracy, real changehappens right away.
These enclaves may face pushback—from the city, from corporate-backed nonprofits—but they alsodemonstrate a simple, radical truth: there’s no genuine shortage of resources, only a shortage of gatekeepers’willingness to let us share them freely.
Care Doesn’t Need Approval
Inthis world of illusions—where officialdom claims we have no choice but to comply with pay-to-survive rules—it’seasy to forget that mutual aid is as old as humanity. Historically, across cultures, people cooperated with neighbors to survive.Criminalizing direct care is the anomaly, not the default.
So let’smove beyond the question of “Is there enough?” and focus on “Why aren’t we letting people share what’salready there?” Because once we see that we have plenty of apartments, surplus groceries, and hospital capacity—justlocked behind profit or policy—then it’s obvious we do not need a catastrophe or a billionaire’s blessing.
Ifwe’re bold enough to defy the assumption that only sanctioned institutions can help, we can start providing for each otherright now.
4 Takeaways:
- Scarcity Is Often Manufactured – Shortagesexist, but many are exaggerated to justify profit-driven control over resources that could be shared.
- Criminalizing Direct Care Enforces Dependency – Laws restricting mutual aid force reliance on corporate and state-approved channels, blocking grassroots solutions.
- Resources Exist, But Access Is Blocked– Farmland, hospital beds, and food surpluses are abundant, yet laws and bureaucracy often prevent their free use.
- Act Without Asking – Free fridges, volunteer clinics, and tiny-house communities show that direct careworks—even when gatekeepers resist.
In solidarity,
Kanav Jain
syadvada.com