[From my Webnote series]
Quite often you hear people muse about a post-scarcity society, one of near superabundance, where money will no longer be useful since there will be no need to economize or calculate. This is reminiscent of the Star Trek universe which sometimes implies there is no longer any need for money. Of course this is preposterous. There is a reason Rothbard mocked what he called the “Space Cadets.” 1 I mean hey, I like sci-fi too, but know the difference between fiction and reality, unlike too many libertarian activists, trekkers, and D&D fans.
True post-scarcity or superabundance is impossible, just as the economic concept of scarcity (conflictable resources) 2 is not really the same as the more colloquial concept of “scarcity” (lack of abundance). 3
Rothbard recognized this long ago—in fact, 55 years ago:
“The Russians, after trying an approach to the communist, moneyless economy in their “War Communism” shortly after the Bolshevik Revolution, reacted in horror as they saw the Russian economy heading toward disaster. Even Stalin never tried to revive it; and since World War II, the East European countries have seen a total abandonment of this communist ideal and a rapid movement toward free markets, a free-price system, profit-and-loss tests, and a promotion of consumer affluence. It is no accident that it was precisely the economists in the communist countries who led the rush away from communism, socialism, and central planning and toward free markets. It is no crime to be ignorant of economics, which is, after all, a specialized discipline and one that most people consider to be a “dismal science.” But it is totally irresponsible to have a loud and vociferous opinion on economic subjects while remaining in this state of ignorance.
“The same comment can be made on the widespread belief, held by many New Leftists and by all Anarcho-Communists, that there is no longer a need to worry about economics or production because we are supposedly living in a “post-scarcity” world, where such problems do not arise. But while our condition of scarcity is clearly superior to that of the caveman, we are still living in a world of pervasive economic scarcity. How will we know when the world has achieved “post-scarcity”? Simply, we will know when all the goods and services that we may want have become so superabundant that their prices have fallen to zero, in short, when we can acquire all goods and services as in a Garden of Eden—without effort, without work, without using any scarce resources.” 4
See also Stephan Kinsella, “Law and Intellectual Property in a Stateless Society,” in Legal Foundations of a Free Society (Houston, Texas: Papinian Press, 2023), text at notes 14-15:
As indicated above, every legal system assigns a particular owner to each scarce resource. These resources obviously include natural resources such as land, fruits on trees, and so on. Things found in nature are not the only scarce resources, however. Each human actor has, controls, and is identified and associated with a unique human body, which is also a scarce resource.[14] Both human bodies and nonhuman, scarce resources are desired for use as means by actors in the pursuit of various goals.[15]
[14] As Hoppe observes, even in a paradise with a superabundance of goods:
[E]very person’s physical body would still be a scarce resource and thus the need for the establishment of property rules, i.e., rules regarding people’s bodies, would exist. One is not used to thinking of one’s own body in terms of a scarce good, but in imagining the most ideal situation one could ever hope for, the Garden of Eden, it becomes possible to realize that one’s body is indeed the prototype of a scarce good for the use of which property rights, i.e., rights of exclusive ownership, somehow have to be established, in order to avoid clashes.
Hoppe, A Theory of Socialism and Capitalism, 19. See also “Causation and Aggression” (ch. 8) (discussing the use of other humans’ bodies as means). See also “How We Come to Own Ourselves” (ch. 4).
And from Haman Nature, Sci-Fi Author JOHN C. WRIGHT – Writing, Philosophy And The Golden Age | Hn 189
see John C. Wright’s perceptive comments about the implausibility of the idea of a non-money and genuinely post-scarcity society (though I find the idea of three monies, and of the type he imagines, to also be implausible):
[23:51] [Haman] I was talking about the fact that in your world, people could just dive into whatever niche reality they want to live in, so long as they have the resources to pay for the computing power. Oh, that was another interesting thing. You had changed money because the society is so rich. The only true currency, the only thing of value is computing power. computing power measured in time increments, if I recall correctly.
[Wright] Correct. Computer seconds. But you’re slightly incorrect. There were three currencies, not one. One was computer time, one was gold, and one was grams of antimatter. Oh, that’s right. Because antimatter was the most compact form of energy possible, and energy was always in scarce supply.
Now, I didn’t have a post-scarcity society like some of my contemporary science fiction writers imagined from the far, far future, because I don’t believe in such a thing. I’ve studied economics. Whatever your limiting factor is, is going to be the fact you have to economize. Now, if you’re a very, very wealthy, all that means that you’re going to try to do things that are more and more ambitious.
So I had one of my characters trying to tame the sun. He was attempting to manipulate the solar magnetic fields in such a fashion as to produce and control the solar flares so they would not form a hazard to interplanetary communication and travel. That was Helion, the father of my character, Phaethon, my hero Phaethon. Well, that requires a lot of effort. That requires a lot of energy. So I don’t care how wealthy you are, you’re never going to get rid of the fact that you’re going to have inequalities of income because people are going to find each other unequal in how beneficial they see each other as being.
What they’re willing to trade, what you’re willing to trade to me or I’m willing to trade to you is not going to be equal for all for all people. Some rock stars are going to be more popular than others. Nothing else. I do. Yes, everyone could everyone who could do anything they could afford to do.
And computer time was the was one of the main limiting factors because the computers by that time. were not only intelligent, but they were super intelligent. See, I had postulated not just one singularity, that was the term at the time for the unimaginable future, but seven. Because I put the story very far in the future.
- See Kinsella, Rothbard on Libertarian “Space Cadets”. [↩]
- On Conflictability and Conflictable Resources; Voluntaryism and Voluntarism. [↩]
- On Property Rights in Superabundant Bananas and Property Rights as Normative Support for Possession; Nobody Owns Bitcoin; KOL272-2 | Q&A with Hülsmann, Dürr, Kinsella, Hoppe (PFS 2019). [↩]
- Murray N. Rothbard, “Anarcho-Communism,” in Egalitarianism as a Revolt Against Nature and Other Essays, R.A. Childs, Jr., ed., 2d. ed. (Auburn, Ala.: Mises Institute, 2000), p. 202, originally published in Libertarian Forum, vol. 2, no. 1 (January 1, 1970), in The Complete Libertarian Forum, Murray N. Rothbard, ed., Volume 1: 1969–1975 (Auburn, Ala.: Mises Institute, 2006). [↩]
