Scarcity and Economics of Survival in "Dune"

Another late post. I really do apologize. I just didn't want to post this time without having read the full book.

The thing that stuck with me most about Dune, admittedly moreso than the religion theme, which often just became a jumble of titles and rites, was the structure of Fremen life and the necessity of utmost conservation of their society's most precious natural resource -- water. The scarcity of water united the Fremen people in nearly every aspect.. culturally, religiously, economically... It should be easy to take this extreme example as a model for behavior in "Terran society". Inasmuch as comptetition for scarce resources motivates, economically speaking, all human action (at a fundamental level), we should be able to apply this function to politics (of course), sociology (not too much of a stretch) and religion (I don't have it quite worked out in my head yet how this works, but I don't doubt that it does).

So to tie this thought in with the week's topic, I'd say a great deal of what inspires Religion and Politics on Arrakis is one factor: the lack of whatever, which shapes and molds Fremen society, necessarily, in order for it to survive.