Post-scarcity defined

Main article: A moneyless economy based on reputation and need

Main article: Defining utopia

Main article: Balance between individual liberties and the community

Main article: Technocracy

Post-scarcity conventionally refers to a futuristic concept (featured alot in sci-fi) where technology, particularly robotics and AI, have succeeded in doing the work for us and we then simply live a life of ease and abundance. The definition here is a bit more pedestrian. A post-scarcity society is one that can easily provide all necessities for all its members with a reasonable amount of work. Think middle class standard of living in the US or Western Europe. We can further this definition by stipulating that post-scarcity means the wealthiest members of society only have access to luxuries that ordinary folks don’t have, not necessities. For example, everyone has a reasonable home even if the wealthy have bigger ones. Everyone has access to life-saving medical procedures, education, food, etc.

We would argue that this is the correct way to view post-scarcity for three reasons: 1) We don’t have a society (yet) where technology makes work obsolete, 2) An optional-work society is not one worth striving for, and 3) The conventional definition of post-scarcity obscures a basic reality which is that we can all live reasonably well right now if wealth were shared equitably. In other words, post-scarcity seems to imply that more advanced technology is required before we can all live well. But we can all live well with current technology. In fact, we could go so far as to speculate that a society that doesn’t achieve an equitable distribution of wealth with current technology will also fail to do so when it has post-scarcity levels of technology. In other words, imagine a society where technology makes work unnecessary, could provide for everyone’s needs, and yet has extreme poverty.

How and why could such a society be possible? Because in a society with money, and consequent vast wealth inequality, a single person might own the means of production and choose to simply not share it with anyone else. One downside of money is it gives outsize power to those who have it because they can lay claim to society’s goods without others even knowing about it. They can “own” virtually everything and thus have too much power.

Any democratic system of governance seeks to prevent this outcome. As noted above, our own founding fathers were aware of this problem and recommended a largely equal distribution of property to combat it. Even Alexander Hamilton was in favor of creating a strong middle class society based on property ownership. These ideas have made their way through history in various forms: egalitarian land distribution schemes during the western expansion, public corporations chartered by the state, employee stock ownership, etc. Our current corruption at the hands of moneyed interests would, no doubt, have shocked the founders.

The basic mission of a post-scarcity society must be either investment or allowing humans greater leisure time (and things to consume their leisure time with). I would argue that the leisure aspect of this, past a reasonable notion of vacation, is bankrupt and will only create unhappy people. In fact, in any post-scarcity society where the abundance is so great as to make work obsolete (ie the sci-fi version of post-scarcity), work would need to be created for mental health reasons.

That leaves investment as the proper goal of a post-scarcity society. The ratings system on which it is based should therefore strive for a good balance between investment and consumption. This means favoring investment after consumption needs have been met.

In today’s society we have the opposite, underinvestment and overconsumption. Investment can be seen as idea implementation and we have alot of ideas going to waste because there isn’t enough investment capital to fund them. And not enough people who are willing to act on them because they don’t feel they can quit their day jobs. Our tendency instead is to work for “better” versions of the things we already have.