LogFAQs > #928777144

legendary_zell posted...

ssjevot posted...

A post scarcity society like you see in Star Trek (with the exception of Latinum which unsurprisingly continues to allow capitalism to exist) would have no use for an economic system. Economics is the study of how we balance people's unlimited wants, with the scarcity of resources. Sometimes this scarcity is artificial (like IP, information is not actually a scarce resource, but legal barriers are added to force scarcity where none would exist), but the difference between say capitalism and socialism is the manner in which scarce resources are produced and distributed. If scarcity doesn't exist (as in Star Wars) there is no need for an economic system. So looking at Star Trek for economic ideas for modern society isn't very useful, because the entire world economy is driven by the issue of scarcity.

End stage communism is barely an economic system in the same way that capitalism and socialism are. The state withers away, along with private property. Ownership of whatever is producing the limitless resources would hypothetically be in common. At that point, it's basically the difference between a few families owning it or everyone owning it.

The major thing that makes it Not Actually Communism is that there's no point in even caring who owns what anymore. If you can spin up anything you want on demand or have access to whatever you want very easily, the concept of needing to protect your own property becomes deprecated.

Whereas communism as it has been practiced has not really conceived of such a state of technological advancement, so they still insist on class theory and all that nonsense. Rather than trying to get us to the technological singularity.
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Do good.
Eat communists.