One of the things that attracted me to science fiction was the idea of how technology could radically alter the economics and therefore daily life of the future. As a kid I remember watching shows like Star Trek with its replicators and seemingly super liberal society and always wondered how things would work in such a world. I've spent a lot of time thinking about this topic and have tried to tackle the questions of how a post-scarcity economy would work from both a technical and logistical angle. There are obvious difficult questions like how remaining scarcity would be distributed, if by monetary system how is money earned when the vast majority of labour is automated and so forth. Relevant to OA this led me to write the money article which I've never been fully satisfied with.
Can anyone recommend any sources fictional or otherwise that explore how a post-scarcity society could operate in detail? A few that spring to mind are the short story Manna, Down and Out in the Magical Kingdom and the Voyage From Yesteryear (the latter has an interesting part in the middle where a scarcity economic society tries to prevent its collapse due to living next to a post-scarcity one). From time to time I've managed to find non-fiction on the topic but it always seems lacking.
Obviously the technology to easily implement post-scarcity doesn't exist (though I've read arguments that it could be implemented in a way now) and its not a topic that has much real world data to work with but I'd appreciate anything anyone can think of worth reading.
Can anyone recommend any sources fictional or otherwise that explore how a post-scarcity society could operate in detail? A few that spring to mind are the short story Manna, Down and Out in the Magical Kingdom and the Voyage From Yesteryear (the latter has an interesting part in the middle where a scarcity economic society tries to prevent its collapse due to living next to a post-scarcity one). From time to time I've managed to find non-fiction on the topic but it always seems lacking.
Obviously the technology to easily implement post-scarcity doesn't exist (though I've read arguments that it could be implemented in a way now) and its not a topic that has much real world data to work with but I'd appreciate anything anyone can think of worth reading.