ABSTRACT
The post-apocalyptic landscape of Mad Max provides a number of thought-provoking illustrations of economic concepts. First off, it is very clearly a world of limited resources. This both limits and necessitates production, specialization, and trade. In the world of Mad Max, scarcity is the norm. Everywhere one looks, there are insufficient productive resources to fulfill even basic human wants and needs. In Mad Max, much of the technological know-how that existed before the apocalypse is now forgotten. Trade is extremely limited in Mad Max because there are many barriers that stunt economic activity, or worse, create zero-sum or negative-sum outcomes. In a market economy, decisions about what to produce are made by consumers. In market economies, property is mostly privately owned, while the state owns most of the property in a command economy. Market economies also encourage innovation, leading to economic growth and prosperity.
