How Could We Achieve A Post-Scarcity Economy?

[Zyobot]

Realistically speaking, how could humanity attain a post-scarcity economy, in which the general population had limitless access to goods and services, without rationing or need for continuous expansion (though it can still do the latter for other reasons)?

What plausible chain of events, evolution, and technological advancement might lead to a future of limitless abundance and no need to worry about undersupply?

Thank you in advance,
Zyobot

[dayton3]

For starters you need a steady and inexhaustible energy supply.

[stevep]

Jun 24, 2019 0:07:40 GMT Zyobot said:

Realistically speaking, how could humanity attain a post-scarcity economy, in which the general population had limitless access to goods and services, without rationing or need for continuous expansion (though it can still do the latter for other reasons)?

What plausible chain of events, evolution, and technological advancement might lead to a future of limitless abundance and no need to worry about undersupply?

Thank you in advance,
Zyobot

  I think energy problems could be handled if we start using some of the options becoming available in terms of solar, wind and possibly wave and geothermal as well.  Not sure about bio-energy as there could be problems with land usage and related resources, such as fertilizers, phosphates etc.  Also once distribution systems were in place this could be fairly clean in other ways as well.  Doubt long term use of mass air travel is practical however.

  In terms of producing material items regardless of demand that would I suspect be more difficult.  For one thing your likely to have at least some people demanding massive amounts of stuff simply because they can.  [My private 747 jet needs a runway and support facilities at each of my 17 estates. Plus I want a larger battleship that my next door neighbour. ]  For another our entire social and economic systems since at we stopped being hunter-gatherers has been based on ownership of resources and trading between people.  [Even hunter gatherers would have seen clashes with other tribes over food sources].  Unless your got some sort of autonomous robotic system to handle production and distribution of goods someone is going to be owning/controlling assorted resources and their going to want to trade what they produce with others.  If a lot of people own basically nothing but their labour - which is the case historically - then how much can they buy?  Or alternatively if everything is supplied for free, regardless of demand, how are those who own land, productive capacity etc to be compensated for the the use of their resources and possibly their work?  I can see societies with a basic income but its likely that those who control the resources are going to want to keep that to a minimum, which depending on the definition could be something quite comfortable - but obviously less than what people who still work will be able to manage - or a bare existence level.  Or there could be restrictions on people on basic income, say in terms of voting or breeding rights - which are the sort of things that come up in SFs stories where the issue is considered.

  It would need a massive change in our society and viewpoint I think to get around this and its likely to be such a fundamental one that I can't really see how it could be achieved.

[Deleted]

A literal one is beyond current science (the universe itself, as far we know, is limited, so no infinite amounts of anyhting), however with stable monoethnic/multiethnic but the groups get along democracies all over the globe, free markets with market failures being corrected, extensive global trade, mass-use of AI and neural networks, self-driving veichles and drone delivery,urbanization/suburbanization of the entire of human race, 3D printing of industrial scale and of metalic and biological material, universal genetic engineering, stable family structures, and the commercialization of space all put together you can create so much wealth and so much safety that the poorest of all will still have luxuries that even the rich cant have access today.

[spanishspy]

You can have an imperial hub become post-scarcity for its residents by ruthlessly exploiting others.

[EwellHolmes]

Nuclear Fusion being mass commercialized and a Sky-Hook system lowering orbital launches to ~$200/pound, making access to the resources of the solar system much more affordable.