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Post Scarcity Civilisations
If resources were unlimited, everything would be free. Cars would be free just as gumballs would be free. And because everything is free, then NOTHING would have value. There would be no prices. Just “stuff.”
http://spacetalkblog.com/post-scarcity-civilisations/
“Post Scarcity” is basically a utopian ideal of economists. It means everything is free because things are no longer scarce. Matter of fact the entire study of economics would be unnecessary in a world where resources were unlimitedly plentiful and not scarce. But to really wrap your brain around the concept of “post scarcity” you have to understand what it really means.
You can kind of imagine this if you’ve ever seen Star Trek where they have the replicator. As a child you might say, “Well I’d replicate a ton of diamonds and be rich!” But the problem is there is no “rich” or “poor” in a post-scarcity economy. The diamonds have no value because they can be replicated ad-infinitum, just like everything else. Again, NOTHING would have value, NOTHING would have a price. Matter of fact in a TRULY 100% post scarcity economy, you wouldn’t even have money, because, what would you buy? Everything is free.
This episode examines the concept of a civilisations and economies in which very little scarcity exists and in which production of goods requires so little labor that most basic needs can be met at little or no cost.
Scarcity Definition
Scarcity refers to the basic economic problem, the gap between limited – that is, scarce – resources and theoretically limitless wants. This situation requires people to make decisions about how to allocate resources efficiently, in order to satisfy basic needs and as many additional wants at possible. Any resource that has a non-zero cost to consume is scarce to some degree, but what matters in practice is relative scarcity.
In a hypothetical world in which every resource—water, hand soap, expert translations of Hittite inscriptions, enriched uranium, organic bok choy, time—was abundant, economists would have nothing to study. There would be no need to make decisions about how to allocate resources, and no tradeoffs to explore and quantify. In the real world, on the other hand, everything costs something; in other words, every resource is to some degree scarce.
Money and time are quintessentially scarce resources. Most people have too little of one, the other, or both. An unemployed person may have an abundance of time, but find it hard to pay rent. A hotshot executive, on the other hand, may be financially capable of retiring on a whim, yet be forced to eat ten minute lunches and sleep four hours a night. A third category has little time or money. People with abundant money and abundant time are seldom observed in the wild.
Even resources that we consider infinitely abundant, and which are free in dollar terms, are scarce in some sense. This is another way of stating the maxim, “there’s no such thing as a free lunch.” Take air, for example. From an individual’s perspective, breathing is completely free. Yet there are a number of costs associated with the activity.
It requires breathable air, which has become increasingly difficult to take for granted since the industrial revolution. In a number of cities today, poor air quality has been associated with high rates of disease and death. In order to avoid these costly affairs and assure that citizens can breathe safely, governments must invest in methods of power generation that do not create harmful emissions.