4 possible futures
a) Egalitarianism and abundance: communism
b) Hierarchy and abundance: rentism
c) Egalitarianism and scarcity: socialism
d) Hierarchy and scarcity: exterminism
Note that the first thing the hierarchy does in b) is to create artificial scarcity via things like IP law, the wars on proper nouns and such like which then inexorably leads to d)
m'kay.
http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2012/02/how-do-we-get-there.html It's a discussion about post-scarcity Science Fiction but from the point of view of it being an possible and actual real future. If post-scarcity is somewhere in our future, how do we get there from here?
As several people have pointed out in the comments, from the point of view of the average member of 17th century Europe, huge numbers of people are already living in a post-scarcity world. Which leads one to wonder just how much abundance is needed (and how much egalitarianism) for communism to be a relatively stable social system for time periods of the order of a human generation.
I personally think that once we get to the point that we can generate enough food to feed everyone adequately without anyone having to work in a food industry that doesn't want to do so without specific compensation (there will always be people who want to be agronomists and will do it without being paid extra for doing so), then we can start talking about universal abundance. That doesn't address either shelter or medical care, but on Earth (at least) food appears to be the limiting factor.
Frankly, I am tired of the Cold War mentality that requires that any mention or discussion of communism be rebutted in this manner. (I also dispute the claim that all communist intentional communities "failed miserably"; there are many examples of communist communities that lasted for years, even decades, and when they did disincorporate, did so nonmiserably. We just don't hear much talk about them because they don't fit with the desired narrative.)
And even though some parts of Europe are clearly pretty screwed right now, other parts are doing damn fine, thank you very much.
+Kelly Martin I'm kind of tired of the cold war mentality that says that all failures of communism are because it wasn't "real" communism. It's tired and as pointless as defending the failures of capitalism based on it not being "real" capitalism.
What we have now (in the US, at least) is an oligarchic plutocracy, that does lip service to capitalism and democracy, while preserving few, if any, of the key elements of either.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuroeconomics
Quote: In mainstream economics, expected utility (EU), and the concept of rational agents, are still being used. Many economic behaviors are not fully explained by these models, such as heuristics and framing. Behavioral economics emerged to account for these anomalies by integrating social, cognitive, and emotional factors in understanding economic decisions. Neuroeconomics adds another layer by using neuroscientific methods in understanding the interplay between economic behavior and neural mechanisms.
http://www.futuristspeaker.com/2012/02/2-billion-jobs-to-disappear-by-2030/
http://declineofscarcity.com/