Star Trek Future: Economics

[forsyth]

A post, over on Salon, called "The Utopian Economics of "Star Trek" lays out part of the foundation for a Star Trek future. The defining part of the Star Trek future, for me, is the optimism of it. Part of the optimism is Star Trek is a future largely without scarcity. Even before the replicators of TNG, most resources are easily available. The only limits are energy, and some rare elements, especially the dilithium, the handwavium that makes the nearly-limitless energy available. And once most things aren't scarce, current economics falls apart, as the cots of everything would approach 0.

Which, frankly, is not really that unreasonable, for a spacefaring civilization that's managed to spread beyond a single solar system. Think of the Kardashev scale. The Federation's obviously at least Type II.

To get to a Star Trek future, there's lots of problems to be solved, some technological, but just as many social, political, economic, and everything else. There's room for everybody to work to make a better world.

Comments

[gumbamasta.livejournal.com]

Funny, just when I see this post I've been listening to a interview with Wil Wheaton.

[the-s-guy.livejournal.com]

I've often wondered if it's acutally possible to get to post-scarcity. The more resources there are, the greater the population is going to be, and the more people there will be who are driving demand for cutting-edge products and services, no matter what the actual edge is at any given time.

There will always be demands at the limits of what's possible, where the request can technically be accommodated but at the expense of other people. In which case it comes back down to influence, whether monetary, political, or otherwise. There may be ten billion people who are fed, clothed, sheltered, healthy and educated, but that won't matter much if the neighbouring military decides it wants their planet tossed into a star in order to reduce a strategic weakness.

[forsythferret.livejournal.com]

Well, barring magic nanotech that lets us manipulate matter on an atomic level, then yeah. There's going to be scarcity of some kinds, based on the amount of elements available. But there's no reason the newest greatest fanciest tech would actually be scarce. Fabbers and plans for things they can make exist now, if those advance further, then most anything that can be designed could be made on a desk, with the raw materials available.

Technically, there's always going to be scarcity at the level of the amount of matter available in the universe.

And things like war are why I talked about political advances needed too. :)

[amazingadrian.livejournal.com]

I don't think we'll ever get to that point. No, I'd go as far as to say that any kind of human utopia outside of the Kingdom of Heaven is impossible. Someone else is always going to be getting shafted.

The ability to manipulate matter on a subatomic level is probably possible, and also probably within our grasp. But I sincerely doubt it will eliminate scarcity to the extent we see in Star Trek, or even make it so that we can create anything we want. There has to be limits. People will impose them with laws if there aren't any physical limits to the process.

[forsythferret.livejournal.com]

There are limits. Physical constraints by the laws of physics, and the available matter in the universe. And there will be limits imposed by laws, heck, look at the music and movie industries scrambling since the Internet made copies of files NOT something scarce. But that doesn't mean there need to be, or should be. If we impose limits to protect our understanding of economics, that's pretty dumb. Forcing people to lack just for the protection of an abstract model of human interaction? Lamesauce. That's part of why I said there's a lot more problems to solve than just technical ones. We need to keep trying to become better people, and set up better systems to use.

Hell, there's probably more work needed on the political and social sides than there is on the technology side.