Post scarcity or post-scarcity describes a hypothetical form of economy or society, often explored in science fiction, in which things such as goods, services and information are free, or practically free. This would be due to an abundance of fundamental resources (matter, energy and intelligence), in conjunction with sophisticated automated systems capable of converting raw materials into finished goods, allowing manufacturing to be as easy as duplicating software. For other uses, see Society (disambiguation). ... Science fiction is a form of speculative fiction principally dealing with the impact of imagined science and technology, or both, upon society and persons as individuals. ... Abundance economics deals with situations where there are more than enough resources for everyone (ie: an abundance). ... This article does not cite any references or sources. ... A Raw material is something that is acted upon by human labour or industry to create some product that humans desire. ... Manufacturing (from Latin manu factura, making by hand) is the use of tools and labor to make things for use or sale. ...

Definition

Even without postulating new technologies, it might be true that today there is already enough energy, raw materials and biological resources on Earth to provide a comfortable lifestyle for every person on earth, but even a hypothetical political or economic system that was able to achieve an egalitarian distribution of goods would generally not be termed a "post-scarcity society" unless the production of goods was sufficiently automated that virtually no labor was required by anyone (although it is usually assumed there would still be plenty of voluntary creative labor, like a writer creating a novel or a software engineer working on open-source software). This is a key difference between the most common post-scarcity vision and other utopian visions.^{[citations needed]} A political system is a system of politics and government. ... An economic system is a particular set of social institutions which deals with the production, distribution and consumption of goods and services in a particular society. ... Egalitarianism is the moral doctrine that equality ought to prevail among some group along some dimension. ... Software engineering (SE) is the application of a systematic, disciplined, quantifiable approach to the development, operation, and maintenance of software. ... Open source software is computer software for which the human-readable source code is made available under a copyright license (or arrangement such as the public domain) that meets the Open Source Definition. ... For other uses, see Utopia (disambiguation). ...

There are some exceptions to this usage of the term however. Anthony Giddens, for instance, uses "post-scarcity" to refer to a set of trends he sees in modern industrialized nations, such as an increased focus on "life politics" and a decreased focus on productivity and economic growth. Giddens acknowledges that the term has also been used historically to mean a literal end of scarcity, however. Image needed Anthony Giddens, Baron Giddens (born January 18, 1938) is a British sociologist who is renowned for his theory of structuration and his holistic view of modern societies. ...

Means

Speculative technology

Most visions of post-scarcity societies assume the existence of new technologies which make it much easier for society to produce nearly all goods in great abundance, given raw materials and energy. More speculative forms of nanotechnology (such as molecular assemblers or nanofactories) raise the possibility of devices that can automatically manufacture any specified goods given the correct instructions and the necessary raw materials and energy.^[1] Even before that level of technology can be achieved, fab labs and advanced industrial automation might be able to produce most physical goods that people desire, with a minimal amount of human labor required.^[1] Buckminsterfullerene C60, also known as the buckyball, is the simplest of the carbon structures known as fullerenes. ... A molecular assembler is a molecular machine capable of assembling other molecules given instructions, energy, and a supply of smaller building block molecules to work from. ... A nanofactory is a proposed system in which nanomachines (resembling molecular assemblers, or industrial robot arms) would combine reactive molecules via mechanosynthesis to build larger atomically precise parts. ... Fab Lab is a British television programme designed for pre-school children. ...

As for the raw materials and energy needed as input for such automated production systems, self-replicating automated mining plants set loose in the asteroid belt (see asteroid mining) or other areas of space with huge amounts of untapped raw materials could cause the prices of these materials to plummet. New power sources such as fusion power or solar power satellites could do the same for energy, especially if the power plants/power satellites could themselves be constructed in a highly automated way, so their number would be limited only by raw materials and energy.^[1] A simple form of machine self-replication A self-replicating machine is an artificial construct that is capable of autonomously manufacturing a copy of itself using simpler components or raw materials taken from its environment. ... For other uses, see Asteroid (disambiguation). ... 433 Eros is a stony asteroid in a near-Earth orbit Raw resources and minerals could be mined from an asteroid in space using a variety of methods. ... Internal view of the JET tokamak superimposed with an image of a plasma taken with a visible spectrum video camera. ... An artists depiction of a solar satellite, which could send energy wirelessly to a space vessel or planetary surface. ...

Digital abundance

Traditionally, creators have used (and continue to use) raw materials to instantiate their works: a painter might use oil and canvas, a sculptor might work in clay, an architect might draft designs in pen and ink. Such work would result in a single copy (or "matrix"). While mass reproduction of such works ("impressions") — by processes such as printmaking or photocopying — is possible and common, such reproduction still incurs appreciable costs (for example for the paper used, and for the physical distribution of the copy).

Digital copies however have negligible reproduction costs. The same painter could create an original work with graphics software; the sculptor might use rapid prototyping; the architect CAD/CAM tools. Most of the "cost" in such works is in paying for the original design and development — for the creators' expertise and for their tools (though these also do not wear out the same way physical tools do). While the creators of such works must still labor to create the design matrix, there are virtually no raw-materials required to recreate the work once completed. In computer graphics, graphics software or image editing software is a program or collection of programs that enable a person to manipulate visual images on a computer. ... A rapid prototyping machine using Selective laser sintering. ... CAD/CAM is an abbrieviation of computer-aided design and computer-aided manufacturing. ...

This negligible-cost reproduction raises the question, "How much should one pay for something that can be copied near-indefinitely at minimal expense?" Does a purchaser have the right to reproduce their own copy as much as they can afford to? Some people believe the purchaser does not or should not have any rights to copy or transfer ownership, and use Digital Rights Management to enforce this view. Others instead feel that information should be freely distributed (see copyleft), and that DRM measures are attempts to restore prior business models' viability by inducing artificial scarcity. Digital rights management (DRM) is an umbrella term that refers to access control technologies used by publishers and copyright holders to limit usage of digital media or devices. ... The reversed c in a full circle is the copyleft symbol. ... Artificial scarcity is an economic term describing the scarcity of items even though the technology and production capacity exists to create an abundance. ...

Many advocates of the open source model attempt to collaboratively create open-source software programs which are intended to offer similar capabilities to their commercial competitors, but with the source code made public and permission granted for users to freely copy the software. Richard Stallman, the founder of the GNU project which designed the open-source GNU operating system, and co-founder of the free software movement, has explicitly cited the eventual creation of a post-scarcity society as one of his motivations:^[2] Open source refers to projects that are open to the public and which draw on other projects that are freely available to the general public. ... Open source software is computer software for which the human-readable source code is made available under a copyright license (or arrangement such as the public domain) that meets the Open Source Definition. ... Source code (commonly just source or code) is any series of statements written in some human-readable computer programming language. ... Richard Matthew Stallman (born March 16, 1953), often abbreviated rms,[1] is an American software freedom activist, hacker,[2] and software developer. ... The GNU logo, drawn by Etienne Suvasa The GNU Project was announced in 1983 by Richard Stallman. ... GNU (pronounced ) is a computer operating system composed entirely of free software. ... An operating system (OS) is the software that manages the sharing of the resources of a computer and provides programmers with an interface used to access those resources. ... The free software movement, also known as the free software philosophy, began in 1983 when Richard Stallman announced the GNU Project. ...

"In the long run, making programs free is a step toward the post-scarcity world, where nobody will have to work very hard just to make a living. People will be free to devote themselves to activities that are fun, such as programming, after spending the necessary ten hours a week on required tasks such as legislation, family counseling, robot repair and asteroid prospecting. There will be no need to be able to make a living from programming."

Effects

Economic paradigm

Market economies or planned economies may be unnecessary in a post-scarcity age, though gift or exchange economies may take their place once the scarcity driving earlier types of economy disappears.^[3][4] Post-scarcity societies might also have their market economies limited to the exchange of energy and resources, or of other scarce or even non-material things, such as status or reputation (see Whuffie for a fictional example), real estate, or skills and expertise. A market economy (also called a free market economy or a free enterprise economy) is an economic system in which the production and distribution of goods and services take place through the mechanism of free markets (though completley useless to some dumbasses) guided by a free price system. ... This article refers to an economy controlled by the state. ... A gift economy is an economic system in which goods and services are given without any explicit agreement for immediate or future quid pro quo. ... Look up reputation in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Whuffie is the ephemeral, reputation-based currency of Cory Doctorows sci-fi novel, Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom. ...

Many science-fiction variants also imagine the very concept of ownership to weaken or disappear,^[5] as people lose attachment to all but sentimental-value items, knowing that they will always be able to receive or create replacements. Monetary systems in consequence also cease to be a factor. Many stories depict these changes as a positive advancement, freeing humanity from both toil and greed. Others posit that handing production and most other services over to machines and computers will stunt the spirit of humanity, or even lead to a loss of control over humanity's own fate.^{[citation needed]} This article does not cite any references or sources. ...

Unavoidable scarcity

Some things will remain rare even in a post-scarcity society. Only one person at a time can be a leader of a group, community or country, there is a practical limit to the number of people who can live in any specific, 'in-demand' locale and there are only sixty-nine 'real' Fabergé eggs in the whole world. However, hypothetical machines such as a Star Trek Replicator or nano-construction are envisioned as being able to produce any real-world artifact, and some fictions even envision the physical creation of new living space (orbitals^[5] or ringworlds^[6]) to reduce this scarcity. This would likely further reduce (though not fully abolish) the value of an 'original' item or a specific locale to live in. The Moscow Kremlin egg, 1906 A Fabergé egg is any one of sixty eight [1] jewelled eggs made by Peter Carl Fabergé and his assistants for the Russian Tsars and private collectors between 1885 and 1917. ... This article is about the entire Star Trek franchise. ... In the fictional Star Trek universe, a replicator is a machine capable of converting energy into matter and vice-versa. ... Illustration of an orbital created by Giuseppe Gerbino. ... Ringworld is a Hugo and Nebula award-winning 1970 science fiction novel by Larry Niven, set in his Known Space universe. ...

In fiction

Utopias

Fictional post-scarcity societies include such varied settings as the Bitchun Society from Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom by Cory Doctorow, The Queendom of Sol in the same-named series by Wil McCarthy, "the Festival" from Singularity Sky, and possibly the United Federation of Planets from the Star Trek series (although canon sources do not provide much detail about the Federation's economic system, and it has been suggested in sources such as the Star Trek: The Next Generation Technical Manual that there are many items the replicators can't make duplicates of, including starships). Down And Out in the Magic Kingdom is a 2003 science fiction book, the first novel by Canadian author and digital-rights activist Cory Doctorow. ... Cory Doctorow (born July 17, 1971) is a blogger, journalist and science fiction author who serves as co-editor of the blog Boing Boing. ... The Queendom of Sol is a science fiction book series by Wil McCarthy. ... Wil McCarthy (born September 16, 1966, Princeton, New Jersey) is a science fiction novelist, Chief Technology Officer for Galileo Shipyards (an aerospace research corporation), and the science columnist for the Sci Fi Channel (United States) (example below). ... Singularity Sky (ISBN 0441010725) is a hard science fiction novel by author Charles Stross. ... This article or section does not adequately cite its references or sources. ... This article is about the entire Star Trek franchise. ... Canon, in the context of a fictional universe, comprises those novels, stories, films, etc. ... One of the fictional ships called the Starship Enterprise from Star Trek, one of the most famous fictional starships. ...

Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars trilogy describes the beginning development of a highly automated society whose economy was to be based on caloric input/output and had only a few materials valued based on their scarcity. However, the inherent problems of such a system (such as its remaining capitalist elements or the difficulty in fixing the worth of academic work) are not resolved within the timeframe depicted in the trilogy. For the late American actress, see Kim Stanley. ... The Mars trilogy is a series of award-winning science fiction novels by Kim Stanley Robinson, chronicling the settlement and terraforming of the planet Mars. ...

An intermediate step to a post-scarcity society is shown in Neal Stephenson's The Diamond Age, where fabricator technology allows the growth of any item that one has design plans for - however, the poor receive a lesser amount of energy and resources per day to use, and thus have to wait longer for their items to be fabricated. Also, their items tend to be smaller, as they have no access to large-scale fabricators. This system, fueled by a centrally-distributed matter 'feed' is eventually replaced by the protean 'seed', which is able to take in raw materials from its environment to develop into whatever its program dictates. No longer bound to the aristocratically-controlled feeds, the society moves to a post-scarcity economy. Neal Town Stephenson (born October 31, 1959) is an American writer, known primarily for his science fiction works in the postcyberpunk genre with a penchant for explorations of society, mathematics, currency, and the history of science. ... The Diamond Age or, A Young Ladys Illustrated Primer is a postcyberpunk novel by Neal Stephenson. ...

James P. Hogan has written several works where post-scarcity plays a major role. Voyage from Yesteryear details the society of the "Chironians", embryo colonists of Alpha Centauri who have adopted such a lifestyle. Cradle of Saturn and its sequel The Anguished Dawn is mostly told from the perspective of the "Kronians", a pseudo-religion who colonize Saturn's largest satellite in the process of developing such a society. Both stories are driven by the difficulties of changing an existing economic paradigm, and postulate that a fresh start may be necessary to overcome old thinking about money and possessions. The name James P. Hogan might refer to: The science fiction writer The film maker This is a disambiguation page — a navigational aid which lists other pages that might otherwise share the same title. ... Voyage from Yesteryear is a 1982 science fiction novel by the author James P. Hogan. ... Chiron and Achilles In Greek mythology, Chiron (hand) — sometimes transliterated Cheiron or rarely Kiron — was held as the superlative centaur among his brethren. ... Embryo space colonization is an interstellar space colonization proposal that involves sending a robotic mission to a terrestrial planet (having a biosphere) that transports frozen early-stage embryos. ... Alpha Centauri (α Cen / α Centauri, also known as Rigil Kentaurus), is the brightest star system in the southern constellation of Centaurus. ... Chronos is the personification of time in Greek mythology There is also Cronus, the similarly named Greek mythological Titan, father of Zeus. ... This article is about the planet. ...

Rudy Rucker also dealt with this jarring transition in Realware in which humans receive an alien device that can instantiate any consumer product they have seen. This leads to a breakdown of the market, with stores blacking out their windows in a vain attempt to prevent people from 'copying' their products. Still, people who do buy the products find them instantly copied once out on the streets. Rudy Rucker, Fall 2004, photo by Georgia Rucker. ...

Iain M. Banks' The Culture stories center around an advanced spacefaring civilization that has used artificial intelligences to provide extremely abundant (and in daily practice unlimited) amounts of goods and services using advanced technology, describing a fully post scarcity society, which also attempts to influence other galactic societies towards the advanced cultural stage that freedom from greed and material need has allowed it. The Culture is a fictional anarchic, socialistic and utopian society created by the Scottish writer Iain Banks and described by him in several of his novels and shorter fictions. ... AI redirects here. ...

Dystopias

There have also been fully dystopian science fiction societies where all people's physical needs are provided for by machines, but this causes humans to become overly docile, uncreative and incurious. Examples include E. M. Forster's 1909 short story The Machine Stops and Arthur C. Clarke's 1956 novel The City and the Stars. "Riders of the Purple Wage", Philip José Farmer's dystopian 1967 science fiction novella also explores some ramifications of a future wherein technology allows everyone's desires to be met. In Stanislaw Lem's Cyberiad, a central motif is unbounded progress of technology. In The Highest Possible Level of Development civilization, the inhabitants have become passive, and the visitors have to shoo away machines trying to comfort them. A dystopia (or alternatively cacotopia) is a fictional society, usually portrayed as existing in a future time, when the conditions of life are extremely bad due to deprivation, oppression, or terror. ... Edward Morgan Forster, OM (January 1, 1879 – June 7, 1970), was an English novelist, short story writer, and essayist. ... The Machine Stops is a short science fiction story by E. M. Forster. ... Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Arthur C. Clarke Sir Arthur Charles Clarke, CBE (born 16 December 1917) is a British science-fiction author and inventor, most famous for his novel 2001: A Space Odyssey, and for collaborating with director Stanley Kubrick on the film of the same... The City and The Stars (1956) is a science fiction novel by Arthur C. Clarke. ... Riders of the Purple Wage was a science fiction novella by Philip José Farmer. ... Philip José Farmer (born January 26, 1918) is an American author, principally known for his science fiction and fantasy novels and short stories. ... This article is about the philosophical concept and literary form. ... The title given to this article is incorrect due to technical limitations. ... The Cyberiad is a cycle of short and somewhat cartoonish science fiction stories by Stanislaw Lem. ... For other uses, see Motive. ...

See also

• Abundance (economics)
• Binary economics
• File sharing
• Nanosocialism
• Post-capitalism
• Techno-progressivism
• Techno-utopia
• Technocracy Incorporated
• Persons
  • James S. Albus - nanotechnology researcher and philosopher
  • Murray Bookchin - Post-Scarcity Anarchism
  • Jacque Fresco - The Venus Project
  • Louis O. Kelso - economist proposing alternatives to capitalism

Abundance economics deals with situations where there are more than enough resources for everyone (ie: an abundance). ... Binary economics is a heterodox theory of economics that endorses both private property and a free market but proposes significant reforms to the banking system. ... File sharing is the activity of making files available to other users for download over the Internet, but also over smaller networks. ... Nanosocialism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia /**/ @import /skins-1. ... Post-capitalism or postcapitalism is a hypothetical future economic system in which economy is so radically changed as to be no longer unambiguously called capitalism by our current definition. ... Techno-progressivism, technoprogressivism, or tech-progressivism (a portmanteau word combining technology-focused and progressivism), is a stance of active support for technological development and social progress. ... A techno-utopia is an ideal but imaginary community, in which laws, government, and social conditions are solely operating for the benefit and well-being of all its inhabitants, set in the near- or far-future, when advanced science and technology will allow these ideal living standards to exist; for... Technocracy, Inc. ... Dr. James Sacra Albus is a Senior NIST Fellow, Founder and former Chief of the Intelligent Systems Division of the Manufacturing Engineering Laboratory at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). ... Murray Bookchin[1] (born January 14, 1921) is an American libertarian socialist speaker and writer, and founder of the Social Ecology school of anarchist and ecological thought. ... Jacque Fresco with Roxanne Meadows Jacque Fresco (born March 13, 1916) is an industrial engineer, architectural designer, social engineer and futurist based in Florida. ... Louis O. Kelso (1913-1991) was a lawyer and economic thinker who sought to find a way to preserve capitalism from the competition of communism as an alternative within the context of the early Cold War. ...

References

1. ^ ^{a b c} Engines of Creation (full text online, see also Engines of Creation) - Drexler, Eric K., Anchor Books, 1986
2. ^ GNU Manifesto (full text online, see also GNU Manifesto) - Stallman, Richard; Dr. Dobb's Journal, March 1985
3. ^ The Gift Economy - Vaughan, Genevieve, Ms. magazine, 1990
4. ^ The Hacker Culture as Gift Economy (full text online, see also Homesteading the Noosphere) - Raymond, Eric S., April 1998
5. ^ ^{a b} Various novels set in the 'The Culture' universe - Banks, Ian M.; 1987-2000
6. ^ Various novels from the 'Ringworld' series - Niven, Larry; 1970-2004

Engines of Creation: The Coming Era of Nanotechnology Engines of Creation (ISBN 0-385-19973-2) is a seminal molecular nanotechnology book written by K. Eric Drexler in 1986. ... K. Eric Drexler in 2001. ... The GNU Manifesto was written by Richard Stallman at the beginning of the GNU Project, to ask for participation and support. ... Richard Matthew Stallman (born March 16, 1953), often abbreviated rms,[1] is an American software freedom activist, hacker,[2] and software developer. ... Dr. Dobbs Journal (DDJ) is a monthly journal published in the United States by CMP Media. ... magazine Ms. ... Homesteading the Noosphere, an essay written by Eric S. Raymond about the social workings of Open Source software development, follows up on his influential The Cathedral and the Bazaar. The essay concerns issues of project ownership and transfer, as well as investigating possible anthropological roots of the gift culture in... Eric S. Raymond (FISL 6. ... The Culture is a fictional anarchic, socialistic and utopian society created by the Scottish writer Iain Banks and described by him in several of his novels and shorter fictions. ... Iain Menzies Banks (born on February 16, 1954 in Dunfermline, Fife, Scotland) writes mainstream novels as Iain Banks and science fiction as Iain M. Banks. ... Ringworld is a Hugo and Nebula award-winning 1970 science fiction novel by Larry Niven, set in his Known Space universe. ... This article does not cite any references or sources. ...

External links

• Effortless Economy: An Economic Environment Without Labor
• The (Needed) New Economics of Abundance
• The Economics of Abundance
• The Tragically Neglected Economics of Abundance
• The Economics of Science Fiction
• The Post-Scarcity / Culture of Abundance Reading List v2.2
• Infinity Is Your Friend in Economics - contains links to a series of Techdirt articles on economics when scarcity is removed
• Nanofactory Regulation - ideas on preventing post-scarcity through extensive DRM-like legal restrictions on nanofactories
• Imagining Futures, Dramatizing Fears - classic science fiction stories about highly automated societies, most of them pessimistic
• Automating Feminism - Paragraphs 20-28 (and footnotes 12-20) discuss interest in post-scarcity amongst the New Left in the 1960s/1970s