The economy: moving towards a post-scarcity future

By Dick Pelletier

      

    As birth rates continue to drop and scientists strive to conquer disease, new developments in automation, robotics, and molecular nanotech offer great potential to provide increased abundance for everyone on the planet as the world transitions into a high-tech, digital future.

    Human history fluctuates through periods of scarcity and abundance. According to Jerome Levy Forecasting, 1975-2005 represented a period of abundance, but by 2006, the good times came to an end. Today we suffer 11% unemployment with nearly insurmountable credit woes.

    Analysts predict this recession will last through most of the 2010s with inflation giving way to deflation. Unemployment is expected to remain high – 8% or more – throughout much of the decade, leaving many people struggling.

    However, experts see positive changes ahead as technologies designed to eradicate poverty, improve health, and extend lifespans – along with game-changing molecular nanotech and advanced artificial intelligence – merge into everyday life as we get closer to the 2020s.

    In a recent Futurist Magazine article, "The Post-Scarcity World of 2050," futurists Stephen Aguilar-Millan, Ann Feeney, Amy Oberg, and Elizabeth Rudd explain how tomorrow's technologies will reduce costs and eliminate production expenses, and how this trend will challenge our capitalist business models, concepts, and assumptions developed over the past 200 years.

    The assumption of scarcity has been fundamental for business. It enables producers to charge for goods and services, thus generating revenue. In the upcoming post-scarcity world, advances in a faster, more automated Internet, robots armed with strong artificial intelligence, and molecular nanotech which can create labor-free goods made from cheap resources – will decrease costs until most of today's products and services become free to consumers.

This evolution is already becoming evident in businesses and industries that are being driven towards free products. Most news and information is now free; the Wall Street Journal, Wikipedia, and Craigslist are all free online news and information sources. Literature and books can be downloaded free from authors such as Cory Doctorow and Stephen King. Telephone service such as Skype is free; Yahoo, Google and others offer free email and file storage; and photo services and music down-loads are becoming free, often from the artists themselves.

    It's difficult to conceive of a society where goods and services are abundant and largely free. However, most economists agree that this future will become reality in the coming decades. Scarcity will no longer exist, and without scarcity, the concept of charging consumers to generate revenues will be unworkable. Post-scarcity will turn many of today's businesses upside down, potentially rendering them irrelevant and obsolete. If companies do not adapt to this emerging era of free goods, many will cease to exist.

    Businesses such as Google, eBay, Amazon, and Craigslist have already transitioned to the post-scarcity world. The formula for making money in the "free" marketplace is to adapt quickly; whether employing an entirely "free,” or a blended business model, such as charging fees for premium versions of free goods and services.

    As our post-scarcity society continues to evolve, forward-thinkers believe that sometime during the next century, our world could become commerce-free. Earthlings, including their space colony dwellers may not require commerce of any kind. Could a civilization flourish without commerce? Stay tuned.

This article appeared in various print publications and on-line blogs. Comments always welcome.