Scarcity is to not have enough resources to fullfil a societies wants and needs. The 3 basic questions a society must ask inorder to deal with this are. what to produce? how to produce? and, for whom to produce? whoever answers those questions is how I societies economic system is decided. Though to answer your question in short, the basic goal of a society is to deal with scarcity, they achieve this by producing as much resources as possible with the little resources available.
