"Examining the Concept of 'Post-Scarcity' Societies" up on Fantastic Worlds
"Examining the Concept of 'Post-Scarcity' Societies"
© 2009, 2013
by
Jordan S. Bassior
Some science fiction authors, trying to get beyond the Dismal Science of Economics, posit futures in which tremendous wealth and technology have rendered "post-scarcity." What this means is that any citizen of such a society can, at a mere wish, have whatever he wants made and delivered to him as instantly as the laws of physics allow, and that the satisfaction of such wishes is so easy as to render them essentially "free goods."
Economically, a free good is anything which is in such ample supply, such as breathable air on the surface of a habitable planet, or water in most areas of regular rainfall and ordinary civil-engineering, that there is no real point in attempting to price and sell it: the effort to do so would be more expensive than the profit which could be made from selling the good. As technology advances, the per capita wealth of the individual increases. Could this reach a point where all goods became essentially free?
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