> For example, why don't we have shortages of beef and chicken, while fish are threatened with extinction?
Because farmers can easily breed beef and chicken; fishermen cannot easily breed their own fish - the fish have a nasty habit of not respecting imaginary property lines in water, and you can't just put fences in an ocean.
It's worth noting that the free market is precisely why fish are threatened with extinction. It's a textbook tragedy of the commons, for which the solution is regulatory in nature.
Because farmers can easily breed beef and chicken; fishermen cannot easily breed their own fish - the fish have a nasty habit of not respecting imaginary property lines in water, and you can't just put fences in an ocean.
It's worth noting that the free market is precisely why fish are threatened with extinction. It's a textbook tragedy of the commons, for which the solution is regulatory in nature.