A while back, I’ve heard some folks — including some that should know better — seriously argue that we live in a “post-scarcity” society, since it was so easy to get things. Of course, the effects of the virus have made us completely aware of how scarce things can actually be.
Others argue that we may not be post-scarcity now, but we will be in the future due to the inexorable advance of technology. This seems plausible on the surface — the asteroid belt is unmined and fusion power looks like a plausible future energy source. However, even accounting for both of those, there would still be no post-scarcity society because raw materials will still be scarce.
Scarcity exists because there is never enough of anything to fully satisfy everyone who wants it — and even if there is, it still needs to be accessible at a low enough cost to be profitable. Earth’s own resources are finite, making scarcity a given no matter how prosperous a handful of countries become. With current technology, it is not profitable to mine space, so all the bounty in the asteroid belt will go untapped.
But what about fusion power? With enough energy, you should be able to do anything, right? We should be able to transmute any matter into anything.
However, even with fusion power, transmuting elements in any appreciable quantity will still use up too much power. Much more likely is the use of all that fusion energy to turn raw materials into finished products and waste products, some of which can be salvaged but most of which will be thrown out in some way. The extra energy may also be used to build space colonies and thus make it easier to harvest the asteroid belt, but once there’s a significant population in space using up resources, scarcity will rear its head again — and it will bite even harder in space because up there, air is not free. The administrators of any space colony will decide whether you live or die, giving them vast power over you. Anyone living in space will have to put up with the harshest tyranny yet seen, and any attempt at rebellion will fail because everyone will die.
Thus, post-scarcity is a fantasy, just like perpetual motion. Heaven is in Heaven, not on Earth. The shiny Star Trek utopia is simply not going to happen.
Rawle
Yup.we even saw hints of scarcity in Star Trek Deep space 9.
But you’re point is perceptive. Time is the scarcest commodity.
We all die.
xavier
Forgot about time, but you’re absolutely correct. You can’t make more time under any circumstances.
If post-scarcity were possible, we would be talking about when it DID start.
Because you can’t legally run a homeless shelter in the US without amenities that royalty went without a few centuries ago.
If “charity cases live better than royalty” is not post-scarcity, I don’t know what is.
Remember that the world’s wealth is not spread evenly, and that even with our technological improvements, things are still scarce since a lot of resources and manpower are needed to make a first-world country go.
Yes, but “wanting things that royalty did without” is why post-scarcity is impossible.
Indeed. It’s the first rule of economics.
Technology increases the efficiency of work. One man, using modern technology, can do what it would have taken fifty men to do not that many generations back.
What this means is that instead of all human beings having to work all day just to feed themselves, a relatively small number of people can feed a nation.
It does not mean that the work no longer needs to be done, or that at some time in the future it will no longer need to be done. No matter how good technology gets, zero men will always do zero work.
Furthermore, increasing levels of technology require an increasing level of infrastructure that must be built and maintained. That requires more people to work.
It’s a net gain in productivity–large commercial farms can produce enough food that most people can live their whole lives and never plant a seed or butcher a hog. But the labor cost of supplying a nation with food goes far beyond just counting farmers.
It’s also the people who build the highways and service the refrigerated trucks and manufacture the refrigerant that keeps those trucks cool and machine the parts that are needed to keep the refrigeration plant in operation and so on and so forth.
Our current level of efficiency is such that huge numbers of people world-wide are not needed to keep the industrial machinery going. For them food comes out a supermarket and water comes out of the tap. Many of these people assume–perhaps unconsciously–that because they don’t know anyone who does the work to provide the necessities of life “technology” has made such people obsolete.
But we are here and we always will be here. No level of efficiency or automation will allow the human race to survive without any work at all.
A great insight. A lot of the work needed to maintain a modern society, and much of it isn’t seen in full.
Hence Mike Rowe’s passion to get kids to go into the trades. They make great money doing an honest job. A hard one but it brings satisfaction.
xavier
Yeah, the “dirty jobs” are truly hard work. I respect the folks willing to do them.