Visions of Post-Scarcity: Can Technology or Policy Overcome Scarcity to Meet Basic Human Needs?
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Scarcity is a modern construct; in the 1800s most believed technology would overcome scarcity. But in the 1900s, economists like Samuelson declared scarcity a permanent condition.
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Today there are two visions of post-scarcity 1) technological, relying on automation to satisfy infinite human desires, and 2) political, focused on meeting everyone's basic needs unconditionally.
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Technological post-scarcity pins hopes on future innovations, while political post-scarcity sees enough resources to achieve basic needs for all now with different policies.
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Post-scarcity has historically focused on freeing minds from worries over basic needs, enabling more creative, artful, convivial living.
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With basic needs met, we could orient society around richer questions like human connection and the ultimate scarcity — time. What utopias might we imagine and work toward then?
