Scarcity and affordability are different things; that’s the whole point. Scarcity is physical. Affordability is the social mechanism governing who gets it. We choose. Money, property rights, divine right, strength, moral frameworks. All of those are human agreements, not physical laws. Roenxi, you keep conflating the two. Nobody is claiming scarcity is a social construct. The claim is that how we allocate scarce things is. Those are separable questions.

Scarcity is a physical phenomenon. Only one $thing exists and more than one person wants it. Scarcity. The agreement to transfer that $thing to someone is based on humans respecting made up rules. Society. Social constructions. How we define affordability is different. You can "pay" in different ways, some that don't have physical mapping t real world like "social standing."

The laws of supply and demand and scarcity still apply, yes. But how that plays out is social. People have to agree or fight. "Affordability" is based on what we agree is worth an exchange. You may value the approval of the recipient more than money. What does affordability mean here? To curry favor later with someone else or because your moral framework lets you sleep better (they were a hungry kid and you don't want kids hungry - another kind of scarcity where we define affordability by how hungry you are).

Like you said, unless we redefine words. Then you can have affordability and scarcity mean the same thing.

Edit: snark reduction