Markets and Post-Scarcity

[Ayn Rand]

That doesn't seem to be an argument against the possibility of post-scarcity as such, but against the compatibility of post-scarcity with a market-based form of society. The suggestion seems to be that the barrier to post-scarcity is social rather than material- unless I'm misinterpreting?

It depends how you define the "proper" function of a market - are they just places for the measurement and exchange of values, or do they also resolve competition.

For example, if there is genuinely "no scarcity" then suppose I decide to take every computer in the World and use them to run some private, obscure mathematical simulation that interests me philosophically but stops anyone else from using them. So I can't use every computer in the World because it would inflict scarcity on others.

Clearly, you must "assign" to me what the proper limits of my desire are, or what is acceptable for me to use or not use. Thus, you impose limits on the system and on choices and preferences, making certain things possible or impossible.

In a market economy, we would simply start to out-bid one another and the winner would take the resources. So there still needs to be an allocation mechanism to assign priorities and choices.

 

[Traitorfish]

It depends how you define the "proper" function of a market - are they just places for the measurement and exchange of values, or do they also resolve competition.

For example, if there is genuinely "no scarcity" then suppose I decide to take every computer in the World and use them to run some private, obscure mathematical simulation that interests me philosophically but stops anyone else from using them. So I can't use every computer in the World because it would inflict scarcity on others.

Clearly, you must "assign" to me what the proper limits of my desire are, or what is acceptable for me to use or not use. Thus, you impose limits on the system and on choices and preferences, making certain things possible or impossible.

In a market economy, we would simply start to out-bid one another and the winner would take the resources. So there still needs to be an allocation mechanism to assign priorities and choices.

It's certainly true that post-scarcity does not mean the instant abolition of all allocation mechanisms, but it doesn't follow from this that the market is a suitable allocation mechanism. Allocation systems develop alongside and correspond to material realities, with their own advantages and limitations, they're not universally interchangeable.

 

[El_Machinae]

That doesn't seem to be an argument against the possibility of post-scarcity as such, but against the compatibility of post-scarcity with a market-based form of society. The suggestion seems to be that the barrier to post-scarcity is social rather than material- unless I'm misinterpreting?

Well, it would just require a re-imaging of laws. You'd not be able to do anything that restricted someone else's access to 'no scarcity'. But how would this work? If you've put your solar panels up, and are now harvesting 'enough' energy to be post-scarcity, then any panel I put up will restrict your ability to be post-scarcity. Now, there's some common sense, if you've gotten 'enough' energy from the Sun being directly above your house, then I think it's clear that I should not be able to block that. But what if your 'enough' requires access to both Sunlight and Moonlight. Does this mean I can no longer put my station between Earth and the Sun? What if your 'enough' requires that you get access to Sunlight at angles other than what's achieved at noon? That you need Dawn's rays and Sundown's rays too? Would I not be allowed to put up a skyscraper?

In other words, once you get to post-scarcity, how do you stay there without restricting other people's access to resources?

 

[Traitorfish]

Well, it would just require a re-imaging of laws. You'd not be able to do anything that restricted someone else's access to 'no scarcity'. But how would this work? If you've put your solar panels up, and are now harvesting 'enough' energy to be post-scarcity, then any panel I put up will restrict your ability to be post-scarcity. Now, there's some common sense, if you've gotten 'enough' energy from the Sun being directly above your house, then I think it's clear that I should not be able to block that. But what if your 'enough' requires access to both Sunlight and Moonlight. Does this mean I can no longer put my station between Earth and the Sun? What if your 'enough' requires that you get access to Sunlight at angles other than what's achieved at noon? That you need Dawn's rays and Sundown's rays too? Would I not be allowed to put up a skyscraper?

In other words, once you get to post-scarcity, how do you stay there without restricting other people's access to resources?

Well, yeah, that's the implication of suggesting that markets are insufficient for the task. I wanted to address the first point, markets themselves, before going on to any discussion of what my replace them, because I know that it's likely to be a contentious point.

 

[Ayn Rand]

Well, yeah, that's the implication of suggesting that markets are insufficient for the task. I wanted to address the first point, markets themselves, before going on to any discussion of what my replace them, because I know that it's likely to be a contentious point.

I agree - I was just thinking about that myself, particularly this point:

That doesn't seem to be an argument against the possibility of post-scarcity as such, but against the compatibility of post-scarcity with a market-based form of society. The suggestion seems to be that the barrier to post-scarcity is social rather than material- unless I'm misinterpreting?

Which is worth some careful thought, because it's the fork-in-the-road where we decide whether markets are a future asset or a future liability [at least, as far as we can within a thought experiment].

As the issue here is competition, and how it can drive resource capture, then the question possibly is whether markets are equipped to handle "social" features such as competition. I would argue that they have a demonstrated capacity to handle competition and have been doing so for thousands of years - for example, social conditions and international competition is already priced into the value of oil on the markets.

So when competitors try to acquire resource from one another, when this is done through markets it bids up the price of the good. This implies that assigning a value to economic goods, even "unlimited" ones, is a useful "social" mechanism as it gives a non-violent mechanism for resolving competition.


However, people don't just compete within markets, but use markets as a means of competing. So then it is possible that a "non-limited" resource could be entirely bought out, and people deprived of it, for no reason other than the greed or caprice of those who control the markets [which happens all the time in the real World ].

But I would say that this too is a necessary thing - if people can't buy their goods through markets, then they will just take their competition to the battlefield or wherever, and acquire it by force. Then you will not be looking at future monopoly or price manipulation, but wars and other crimes.

Such is human nature - you can use technology to solve scarcity problem, but there is no technology that can solve the problems of human evil.

 

[Leoreth]

Markets based on legal privileges such as copyright and patents? They certainly were! And in some places and with some kinds of "intellectual property, late in the 20th.

And yet, somehow, men and women managed to create during all their previous history... and no, I'm not referring to "patronage-based art", the terms under which art was produced were little different (especially by the 19th century) from what they are today, minus the legal privileges to continue to charge income on it, which usually does not belong to the actual artists now anyway. And the same applies for industry, regarding patents. Your own country did without those until 1877, and again proved that it was possible to do without it when, twice in 30 years, it had its companies later stripped from their patents by other countries.

Yeah, sure. I never meant to support copyright and patents with that (actually I think those, especially the former, need to be abolished or at least replaced with a better system). I was just pointing out the (quite obvious) fact that we can't forget to make sure enough money arrives at the producers of art or they will be forced to stop producing it.

 

[Traitorfish]

Which is worth some careful thought, because it's the fork-in-the-road where we decide whether markets are a future asset or a future liability [at least, as far as we can within a thought experiment].

As the issue here is competition, and how it can drive resource capture, then the question possibly is whether markets are equipped to handle "social" features such as competition. I would argue that they have a demonstrated capacity to handle competition and have been doing so for thousands of years - for example, social conditions and international competition is already priced into the value of oil on the markets.

So when competitors try to acquire resource from one another, when this is done through markets it bids up the price of the good. This implies that assigning a value to economic goods, even "unlimited" ones, is a useful "social" mechanism as it gives a non-violent mechanism for resolving competition.


However, people don't just compete within markets, but use markets as a means of competing. So then it is possible that a "non-limited" resource could be entirely bought out, and people deprived of it, for no reason other than the greed or caprice of those who control the markets [which happens all the time in the real World ].

But I would say that this too is a necessary thing - if people can't buy their goods through markets, then they will just take their competition to the battlefield or wherever, and acquire it by force. Then you will not be looking at future monopoly or price manipulation, but wars and other crimes.

Such is human nature - you can use technology to solve scarcity problem, but there is no technology that can solve the problems of human evil.

The assumption here seems to be competition as an inevitable phenomenon, regardless of the material circumstances in which humans find themselves, with the consequence that we can only hope to channel it into the most productive and least harmful avenues. But this is not in itself self-evident, so would you be able to elaborate on it?

Yeah, sure. I never meant to support copyright and patents with that (actually I think those, especially the former, need to be abolished or at least replaced with a better system). I was just pointing out the (quite obvious) fact that we can't forget to make sure enough money arrives at the producers of art or they will be forced to stop producing it.

Well, that's the question in the OP: is it possible to make sure that this happens, within the present system? And beyond any workarounds which are possible in any given case, does this represent a structural insufficiency that will prove insurmountable when the question emerges more generally? Or do we have to artificially impose scarcity to keep production functioning, and, if so, is this ultimately desirable? (Or perhaps even possible?)

 

[JerichoHill]

Time: Guaranteed to always be a scarce resource.

 

[Traitorfish]

Time: Guaranteed to always be a scarce resource.

Could you elaborate? It's self-evident that scarcity is not the same thing as finiteness, so I presume that you're intending to make some more substantial point than that?

 

[civver_764]

I don't know if markets and post-scarcity are compatible, I do know it would be fully undesirable though.

In the case of piracy and copyright though, I could imagine the market working its way in. For instance torrent sites could be bought by large corporations, the actual downloading would still be free so as to keep a hold on the "consumer" base, but we would just see an abundance of advertising. Maybe even little commercial watermarks could be inserted into files. Not that this will happen, it seems like the major corporations and lobby groups have opted for strict internet censorship policies instead, but I don't see why it's impossible. I do agree that it's nonsensical to try and convince people to buy something that can be copied effortlessly and without cost(without the threat of force, that is).

 

[amadeus]

Time: Guaranteed to always be a scarce resource.

And heeere come the Austrians.

 

[innonimatu]

Time: Guaranteed to always be a scarce resource.

And thus we shall re-embrace the labour theory of value?

 

[Cutlass]

Could you elaborate? It's self-evident that scarcity is not the same thing as finiteness, so I presume that you're intending to make some more substantial point than that?

The point is that complete post scarcity isn't really a possibility by any theory we know. Now you can make a sci-fi argument for post-scarcity ala-Star Trek. But as far as economics is concerned, it's so far out there that it isn't really even a theory. Just a fictional 'possibility'. Which is why I didn't get involved in the thread earlier. Outside of a scifi story, I can't imagine it. And even within a scifi story, there's still only so much frontage on Miami Beach.

 

[Ergo Sum]

It depends how you define the "proper" function of a market - are they just places for the measurement and exchange of values, or do they also resolve competition.

For example, if there is genuinely "no scarcity" then suppose I decide to take every computer in the World and use them to run some private, obscure mathematical simulation that interests me philosophically but stops anyone else from using them. So I can't use every computer in the World because it would inflict scarcity on others.

Clearly, you must "assign" to me what the proper limits of my desire are, or what is acceptable for me to use or not use. Thus, you impose limits on the system and on choices and preferences, making certain things possible or impossible.

In a market economy, we would simply start to out-bid one another and the winner would take the resources. So there still needs to be an allocation mechanism to assign priorities and choices.

I think a few things are missing here. First, as Traitorfish points out, you assume that some form of conflict is inevitable, but I would argue that post-scarcity necessitates a lack of conflict. If some mechanism for meeting everyone's economic means like housing, transportation, food, etc., exists, what else is left to produce conflict? Political or ideological issues, maybe, but that's nothing that modern forms of government can't amply handle. Obviously people will need to be restricted from blocking up access to resources for other people, assuming that there's scarce short-term supply of goods and non-scarce long-term supply. Again, that's not an issue that couldn't be handled by modern governments. I'm a tad puzzled that you think that markets are a more relevant way of dealing with violent conflicts, when government seems to always have played the biggest part in this.

Such is human nature - you can use technology to solve scarcity problem, but there is no technology that can solve the problems of human evil.

This is an interesting notion, I would say that attitude that human destructiveness comes out of competition for goods. I believe he kind of megalomaniacal capitalism we see nowadays in investment bankers and CEO-types is definitely conditioned by a capitalist economy more than innate human nature. The social reinforcement for making egregious sums of money is what causes these attitudes. Yes, people work to secure a decent standard of living for ourselves, but that work wouldn't be there if it weren't for scarcity. If someone can hand us everything we could possibly want, where's the room for rioting?

 

[Traitorfish]

The point is that complete post scarcity isn't really a possibility by any theory we know. Now you can make a sci-fi argument for post-scarcity ala-Star Trek. But as far as economics is concerned, it's so far out there that it isn't really even a theory. Just a fictional 'possibility'. Which is why I didn't get involved in the thread earlier. Outside of a scifi story, I can't imagine it. And even within a scifi story, there's still only so much frontage on Miami Beach.

Well, again, "post-scarcity" doesn't mean "infiniteness", so it's not a case of matter replicators or GTFO. Take the example of digital abundance- nobody is suggesting that we could replicate data infinitely, because that's self-evidently impossible, but that we could produce as much as we could need. So I don't really know if you're objection is actually to "post-scarcity" as the term is being used here.

And I don't know if trying to classify post-scarcity as "a theory" or "not a theory" is particularly useful, or even meaningful, because it's not an all or nothing state of affairs. Again, take digital abundance- that doesn't even need to be hypothetical, let alone theoretical, because it is imminent.

 

[GoodSarmatian]

Why should I pay so much to fly to Maldives, when I can go there in virtual reality for a fraction of the price?

For the same reason people buy most things: Tto bragg about it.
I believe that even if we all have magical nanomachines, there'll still be a niche market for 'real' goods, just to show you can afford them.

 

[wolfigor]

The point is that complete post scarcity isn't really a possibility by any theory we know. Now you can make a sci-fi argument for post-scarcity ala-Star Trek. But as far as economics is concerned, it's so far out there that it isn't really even a theory. Just a fictional 'possibility'. Which is why I didn't get involved in the thread earlier. Outside of a scifi story, I can't imagine it. And even within a scifi story, there's still only so much frontage on Miami Beach.

Complete post-scarcity is not really possible any time soon on this planet.
However we have virtual post-scarcity on some non-tangible items.
Imagine all the music, games, virtual items inside games, etc.: they are for all practical matter unlimited.

It costs to create any of those "virtual items" listed above, but once produced the cost of duplicating and distributing them is extremely low (close to zero for very large scale distribution).
This type of economy has most if not all the characteristics of a post-scarcity economy.

At the time being the issue is solved by imposing an artificial "scarcity" on the items by enforcing copyright laws, DRM, exclusivity (e.g. CivV only from Steam), etc.
In this way they can still work under the traditional market economy, reap a large profit on sales, and as a side effect motivate (pay) people to create more "virtual items".

In this case scarcity is artificial and, however we may despise it, it allows people to still innovate and produce always new "stuff".

What will happen if we would remove this artificial scarcity (e.g. allow copy and free distribution of any "virtual item")?
Would it lead to a complete collapse and stagnation or the system will find an equilibrium with some people still producing "virtual items" just for the fun and prestige of doing it?

In the real life we live probably we will have a considerable stagnation: people still have to have a revenue to pay for their needs (e.g. food and house) so they can't dedicate all their time to activities that bring no money at all.

But if we imagine a truly post-scarcity society where people can get what they need to live without having to really pay for it and equal access to respurces, then they will also have no need to spend time in activities to pay for their living but they will have time to create new stuff (invention, research, new songs, anything) just for the fun of doing it (and probably for reputation).

In my view even if we imagine a society with de-facto unlimited resources there will also be some form of scarcity.
The scarcity may be only temporary (e.g. enough ice-cream for everybody, but if you want chocolate you have to wait one day, pistachio is available immediately) or some new form of scarcity.

Unfortunately every time we try to imagine a truly post-scarcity scenario, sooner or later we hit some limitations.

We could imagine we have mastered some super-advanced technology to produce energy (virtually free, clean, and pretty much eternal) everybody has his own nano-replicator, unlimited access to blue-prints of everything existing, and access to energy.
Even in this scenario we may have an element of scarcity: raw material.

However automatic crawlers (built free by replicators and powered by our unlimited energy) that scout our planet and near planets/asteroids will provide the raw material.
Maybe if one resource is requested by too many people, somebody will have to wait.
Maybe inventing new stuff will allow the inventor to have "credits" to have priority access to (temporary) scarce resources.

In this case, then, "credits" will be the element of scarcity and people will work to gain more of them.
A post-scarcity economy but with a rather arbitrary element of scarcity.

 

[Traitorfish]

For the same reason people buy most things: Tto bragg about it.
I believe that even if we all have magical nanomachines, there'll still be a niche market for 'real' goods, just to show you can afford them.

If we all have "magical nanomachines", what would the basis for wealth disparities be? Practically or ethically?

 

[GoodSarmatian]

If we all have "magical nanomachines", what would the basis for wealth disparities be? Practically or ethically?

Intellectual, philosophical or artistic contributions to society/mankind. In Winner's example everyone would own a nanomachine that can produce most things, but they'd still have to download templates and programmes for the machine,
There may still be intellectual property and licencing fees, there would still be scientists doing basic research and developing new technologies, there would still be artists perfroming or creating music, movies etc.

 

[Traitorfish]

Intellectual, philosophical or artistic contributions to society/mankind. In Winner's example everyone would own a nanomachine that can produce most things, but they'd still have to download templates and programmes for the machine,
There may still be intellectual property and licencing fees, there would still be scientists doing basic research and developing new technologies, there would still be artists perfroming or creating music, movies etc.

Does this imply a perpetuation of market-based society, though, as you post implied?