Economics Of Abundance

Almost all markets in history have been based on rules for allocating scarce resources (e.g. food, land, energy).

If (material) resources were no longer scarce, would the rules need to change?

• Bucky Fuller said the Economics Of Scarcity is already a con
• Not every market has been based on scarcity, there is the occasional Gift Economy. Which might hold lessons for us. But I don't think we can achieve such a situation for a significant number of people. And there may be certain rules in those situations (e.g. no moving between tribes) that we wouldn't want to apply.

is this the New New Economy?

some SciFi books that take place in a society based on the Economics Of Abundance:

• Diamond Age
• Down And Out In The Magic Kingdom
  • WalkAway - Fully Automated Luxury Communism
• The RICH Economy in Robert Anton Wilson's Schrodingers Cat Trilogy
• Manna: Two Visions Of Humanity's Future

How many people will achieve Jobless Well-being?

Post-scarcity economy - Wikipedia

A situation in which most goods are available to all very cheaply or even freely

An ideological contrast to the post-scarcity economy is formed by the concept of a steady-state economy

Models

Speculative technology

More speculative forms of nanotechnology (such as molecular assemblers or nanofactories, which do not currently exist) raise the possibility of devices that can automatically manufacture any specified goods

In the more near-term future, the increasing automation of physical labor using robots is often discussed as means of creating a post-scarcity economy.

Marxism

Karl Marx, in a section of his Grundrisse that came to be known as the "Fragment on Machines", argued that the transition to a post-capitalist society combined with advances in automation would allow for significant reductions in labor needed to produce necessary goods

Post-Scarcity Anarchism

Fiction

The Culture series by Iain M. Banks are centered on a post-scarcity economy where technology is advanced to such a degree that all production is automated, and there is no use for money or property (aside from personal possessions with sentimental value). People in the Culture are free to pursue their own interests in an open and socially-permissive society. The society has been described by some commentators as "communist-bloc" or "anarcho-communist". Banks' close friend and fellow science fiction writer Ken MacLeod has said that The Culture can be seen as a realization of Marx's communism, but adds that "however friendly he was to the radical left, Iain had little interest in relating the long-range possibility of utopia to radical politics in the here and now. As he saw it, what mattered was to keep the utopian possibility open by continuing technological progress, especially space program, and in the meantime to support whatever policies and politics in the real world were rational and humane."

Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom by Cory Doctorow features a moneyless society where material goods are no longer scarce, and everyone is granted basic rights that in our present age are mostly considered luxuries

Cory Doctorow's novel Walkaway presents a modern take on the idea of post-scarcity.

Neal Stephenson's novel The Diamond Age takes place in a post-scarcity world, though not everyone benefits equally.