Post-scarcity

{{Short description|Situation in which all goods are available to all free of charge}}

Post-scarcity is a theoretical economic situation in which most goods can be produced in great abundance with minimal human labor, so that they become available to all very cheaply or even freely.{{Citation | last = Sadler | first = Philip | title = Sustainable Growth in a Post-Scarcity World: Consumption, Demand, and the Poverty Penalty | publisher = Gower Applied Business Research | date = 2010 | location = Surrey, England |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1PFD5zdZKyYC&pg=PA7 |page=7 | isbn = 978-0-566-09158-2}}Robert Chernomas. (1984). "[https://www.jstor.org/stable/4225503 Keynes on Post-Scarcity Society]." In: Journal of Economic Issues, 18(4).

Post-scarcity does not mean that scarcity has been eliminated for all goods and services. Instead it means that all people can easily have their basic survival needs met along with some significant proportion of their desires for goods and services.{{Citation | last = Burnham | first = Karen | title = Space: A Playground for Postcapitalist Posthumans | publisher = Strange Horizons | date = 22 June 2015 | url = http://www.strangehorizons.com/2015/20150622/1burnham-a.shtml | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20151127150637/http://www.strangehorizons.com/2015/20150622/1burnham-a.shtml | archive-date = 27 November 2015 | quote = By post-scarcity economics, we're generally talking about a system where all the resources necessary to fulfill the basic needs (and a good chunk of the desires) of the population are available. | access-date = 14 November 2015 | url-status = dead }} Writers on the topic often emphasize that some commodities will remain scarce in a post-scarcity society.{{cite magazine| last = Frase | first = Peter | title = Four Futures | magazine = Jacobin | date = Winter 2012 | issue = 5 | url = https://www.jacobinmag.com/2011/12/four-futures/ | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20151117033345/https://www.jacobinmag.com/2011/12/four-futures/ | url-status = live | archive-date = 2015-11-17 }}{{cite book | last = Sadler | first = Philip | title = Sustainable Growth in a Post-Scarcity World: Consumption, Demand, and the Poverty Penalty | publisher = Gower Applied Business Research | date = 2010 | location = Surrey, England |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1PFD5zdZKyYC&pg=PA57 |page=57 | isbn = 978-0-566-09158-2}}{{cite web | last1 = Das | first1 = Abhimanyu | last2 = Anders | first2 = Charlie Jane | author-link2 = Charlie Jane Anders | title = Post-Scarcity Societies (That Still Have Scarcity) | publisher = io9 | date = 30 September 2014 | url = http://io9.com/post-scarcity-societies-that-still-have-scarcity-1640882232 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20151117021509/http://io9.com/post-scarcity-societies-that-still-have-scarcity-1640882232 | archive-date = 17 November 2015 | access-date = 14 November 2015 | url-status = live }}{{harv|Drexler|1986}}, See the first paragraph of the section [https://web.archive.org/web/20111220160715/http://e-drexler.com/d/06/00/EOC/EOC_Chapter_6.html "The Positive-Sum Society"] (archived December 20, 2011) in Chapter 6.

Models

=Speculative technology=

Futurists who speak of "post-scarcity" suggest economies based on advances in automated manufacturing technologies, often including the idea of self-replicating machines, the adoption of division of labour{{harv|Peters|Marginson|Murphy|2009}}, pp. [https://books.google.com/books?id=aQmTNIka2JkC&lpg=PP1&pg=PA11 11] which in theory could produce nearly all goods in abundance, given adequate raw materials and energy.

More speculative forms of nanotechnology such as molecular assemblers or nanofactories, which do not currently exist, raise the possibility of devices that can automatically manufacture any specified goods given the correct instructions and the necessary raw materials and energy,{{harv|Drexler|1986}} and many nanotechnology enthusiasts have suggested it will usher in a post-scarcity world.{{Citation | first = Rob | last = Sparrow | editor-last = Hodge | editor-first = Graeme A. | editor2-last = Bowman | editor2-first = Diana | editor3-last = Ludlow | editor3-first = Karinne | contribution = Negotiating the nanodivides | contribution-url = https://books.google.com/books?id=wtzAFmbTzy4C&pg=PA87 | title = New Global Frontiers in Regulation: The Age of Nanotechnology | year = 2007 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wtzAFmbTzy4C&pg=PA98 |page=98 | place = Cheltenham, England | publisher = Edward Elgar Publishing Limited | isbn = 978-1-84720-518-6 }}{{Citation | last = Barfield | first = Thomas | title = Get ready for a world of nanotechnology | publisher = Guardian US | date = 2 September 2010 | url = https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2010/sep/02/nanotechnology-world-technological-leap | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20151117030230/http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2010/sep/02/nanotechnology-world-technological-leap | archive-date = 17 November 2015 | access-date = 12 December 2016 | url-status = live }}

In the more near-term future, the increasing automation of physical labor using robots is often discussed as means of creating a post-scarcity economy.{{Citation | last = Wohlsen | first = Marcus | title = When Robots Take All the Work, What'll Be Left for Us to Do? | magazine = Wired | date = 8 August 2014 | url = https://www.wired.com/2014/08/when-robots-take-all-the-work-whatll-be-left-for-us-to-do/ | archive-url = https://archive.today/20140808113737/http://www.wired.com/2014/08/when-robots-take-all-the-work-whatll-be-left-for-us-to-do/ | archive-date = 8 August 2014 | access-date = 11 March 2017 | url-status = live }}{{Citation | last = Merchant | first = Brian | title = Fully automated luxury communism | publisher = Guardian US | date = 18 March 2015 | url = https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2015/mar/18/fully-automated-luxury-communism-robots-employment | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20151118124530/http://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2015/mar/18/fully-automated-luxury-communism-robots-employment | archive-date = 18 November 2015 | access-date = 12 December 2016 | url-status = live }}

Increasingly versatile forms of rapid prototyping machines, and a hypothetical self-replicating version of such a machine known as a RepRap, have also been predicted to help create the abundance of goods needed for a post-scarcity economy.{{harv|Peters|Marginson|Murphy|2009}}, pp. [https://books.google.com/books?id=1PFD5zdZKyYC&lpg=PP1&pg=PA75 75–76] Advocates of self-replicating machines such as Adrian Bowyer, the creator of the RepRap project, argue that once a self-replicating machine is designed, then since anyone who owns one can make more copies to sell (and would also be free to ask for a lower price than other sellers), market competition will naturally drive the cost of such machines down to the bare minimum needed to make a profit,{{cite web | last1 = Gordon | first1 = Stephen | last2 = Bowyer | first2 = Adrian | title = An Interview With Dr. Adrian Bowyer | url = http://blog.speculist.com/reprap_fab_lab/progress-with-s.html | date = 22 April 2005 | access-date = 11 November 2015 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20151117033823/http://blog.speculist.com/reprap_fab_lab/progress-with-s.html | archive-date = 17 November 2015 | url-status = live }}{{Citation | last = Biever | first = Celeste | title = 3D printer to churn out copies of itself | publisher = New Scientist | date = 18 March 2005 | url = https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn7165-3d-printer-to-churn-out-copies-of-itself/ | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20151117134521/https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn7165-3d-printer-to-churn-out-copies-of-itself/ | archive-date = 17 November 2015 | access-date = 8 September 2017 | url-status = live }} in this case just above the cost of the physical materials and energy that must be fed into the machine as input, and the same should go for any other goods that the machine can build.

Even with fully automated production, limitations on the number of goods produced would arise from the availability of raw materials and energy, as well as ecological damage associated with manufacturing technologies. Advocates of technological abundance often argue for more extensive use of renewable energy and greater recycling in order to prevent future drops in availability of energy and raw materials, and reduce ecological damage. Solar energy in particular is often emphasized, as the cost of solar panels continues to drop (and could drop far more with automated production by self-replicating machines), and advocates point out the total solar power striking the Earth's surface annually exceeds our civilization's current annual power usage by a factor of thousands.{{Citation | last = Diamandis | first = Peter H. | title = Abundance: The Future is Better Than You Think | publisher = Free Press | date = 2012 | location = New York, New York |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=lCifxlN8ZIoC&pg=PA6 |page=6 | isbn = 978-1-4516-1421-3}}{{harv|Drexler|1986}}. See the section [http://e-drexler.com/d/06/00/EOC/EOC_Chapter_10.html#section05of09 "The Limits to Resources"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200806093243/http://e-drexler.com/d/06/00/EOC/EOC_Chapter_10.html#section05of09 |date=6 August 2020 }} in Chapter 10.

Advocates also argue that the energy and raw materials available could be greatly expanded by looking to resources beyond the Earth. For example, asteroid mining is sometimes discussed as a way of greatly reducing scarcity for many useful metals such as nickel.{{Citation | last = Thomson | first = Iain | title = Asteroid mining and a post-scarcity economy | publisher = The Register | date = 24 January 2013 | url = https://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/01/24/asteroid_mining_economy/ | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20151117030236/http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/01/24/asteroid_mining_economy/ | archive-date = 17 November 2015 | access-date = 8 September 2017 | url-status = live }} While early asteroid mining might involve crewed missions, advocates hope that eventually humanity could have automated mining done by self-replicating machines.{{harv|Drexler|1986}}, See the section [http://e-drexler.com/d/06/00/EOC/EOC_Chapter_6.html#section03of04 "Abundance"] in Chapter 6. If this were done, then the only capital expenditure would be a single self-replicating unit (whether robotic or nanotechnological). The unit could then replicate at no further cost, limited only by the available raw materials needed to build more.

= Social =

A World Future Society report looked at how historically capitalism takes advantage of scarcity. Increased resource scarcity leads to increase and fluctuation of prices, which drives advances in technology for more efficient use of resources such that costs will be considerably reduced, almost to zero. They thus claim that following an increase in scarcity from now, the world will enter a post-scarcity age between 2050 and 2075.{{Cite journal |last1=Aguilar-Millan|first1=Stephen|last2=Feeney|first2=Ann|last3=Oberg|first3=Amy|last4=Rudd|first4=Elizabeth |date=2009 |journal=The Futurist |publisher=World Future Society |title=The Post-Scarcity World of 2050–2075 |url=https://globaltrends.thedialogue.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/jf2010_post-scarcity3.pdf}}

Murray Bookchin's 1971 essay collection Post-Scarcity Anarchism outlines an economy based on social ecology, libertarian municipalism, and an abundance of fundamental resources, arguing that post-industrial societies have the potential to be developed into post-scarcity societies. Such development would enable "the fulfillment of the social and cultural potentialities latent in a technology of abundance".{{cite book|title=Postmodern Anarchism|last=Call|first=Lewis|publisher=Lexington Books|year=2002|isbn=0-7391-0522-1|location=Lexington|author-link=Lewis Call}}

Bookchin claims that the expanded production made possible by the technological advances of the twentieth century were in the pursuit of market profit and at the expense of the needs of humans and of ecological sustainability. The accumulation of capital can no longer be considered a prerequisite for liberation, and the notion that obstructions such as the state, social hierarchy, and vanguard political parties are necessary in the struggle for freedom of the working classes can be dispelled as a myth.{{cite web|url=https://www.akpress.org/catalog/product/view/id/807/s/postscarcityanarchism/|title=Post-Scarcity Anarchism|publisher=AK Press|access-date=2016-08-01}}

=Marxism=

Karl Marx, in a section of his Grundrisse that came to be known as the "Fragment on Machines",{{cite book |last= Barbour|first= Charles | title= The Marx Machine: Politics, Polemics, Ideology | publisher= Lexington Books | date=2012 |isbn= 978-0-7391-1046-1 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=lf37K6TYbjIC&pg=PA118 |page=118}}The section known as the "Fragment on Machines" can be read online [http://thenewobjectivity.com/pdf/marx.pdf here]. argued that the transition to a post-capitalist society combined with advances in automation would allow for significant reductions in labor needed to produce necessary goods, eventually reaching a point where all people would have significant amounts of leisure time to pursue science, the arts, and creative activities; a state some commentators later labeled as "post-scarcity".{{cite book |last1= Jessop |first1 =Bob |last2 =Wheatley |first2 =Russell |title= Karl Marx's Social and Political Thought, Volume 8|publisher= Routledge|date=1999|isbn= 0-415-19330-3 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=HdFWevMHJ2AC&pg=PA9 |page=9 |quote=Marx in the Grundrisse speaks of a time when systematic automation will be developed to the point where direct human labor power will be a source of wealth. The preconditions will be created by capitalism itself. It will be an age of true mastery of nature, a post-scarcity age, when men can turn from alienating and dehumanizing labor to the free use of leisure in the pursuit of the sciences and arts.}} Marx argued that capitalism—the dynamic of economic growth based on capital accumulation—depends on exploiting the surplus labor of workers, but a post-capitalist society would allow for:

The free development of individualities, and hence not the reduction of necessary labour time so as to posit surplus labour, but rather the general reduction of the necessary labour of society to a minimum, which then corresponds to the artistic, scientific etc. development of the individuals in the time set free, and with the means created, for all of them.{{harv|Marx|1973}}, pp. [https://books.google.com/books?id=bDyemaqiZjUC&lpg=PP1&pg=PA706 706]

Marx's concept of a post-capitalist communist society involves the free distribution of goods made possible by the abundance provided by automation.{{harv|Wood|1996}}, pp. 248–249. "Affluence and increased provision of free goods would reduce alienation in the work process and, in combination with (1), the alienation of man's 'species-life'. Greater leisure would create opportunities for creative and artistic activity outside of work." The fully developed communist economic system is postulated to develop from a preceding socialist system. Marx held the view that socialism—a system based on social ownership of the means of production—would enable progress toward the development of fully developed communism by further advancing productive technology. Under socialism, with its increasing levels of automation, an increasing proportion of goods would be distributed freely.{{harv|Wood|1996}}, pp. 248. "In particular, this economy would possess (1) social ownership and control of industry by the 'associated producers' and (2) a sufficiently high level of economic development to enable substantial progress toward 'full communism' and thereby some combination of the following: super affluence; distribution of an increasing proportion of commodities as if they were free goods; an increase in the proportion of collective goods..."

Marx did not believe in the elimination of most physical labor through technological advancements alone in a capitalist society, because he believed capitalism contained within it certain tendencies which countered increasing automation and prevented it from developing beyond a limited point, so that manual industrial labor could not be eliminated until the overthrow of capitalism.{{harv|Marx|1973}}, pp. [https://books.google.com/books?id=bDyemaqiZjUC&lpg=PP1&pg=PA51 51–52]. Some commentators on Marx have argued that at the time he wrote the Grundrisse, he thought that the collapse of capitalism due to advancing automation was inevitable despite these counter-tendencies, but that by the time of his major work Capital: Critique of Political Economy he had abandoned this view, and came to believe that capitalism could continually renew itself unless overthrown.{{cite book |last= Tomba |first= Massimiliano | title= Marx's Temporalities | publisher= Koninklijke Brill NV | date=2013 |isbn= 978-90-04-23678-3 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=uk6pzXpiSaUC&pg=PA76 |page=76}}{{cite book |last1= Bellofiore |first1= Riccardo |last2= Starosta |first2= Guido| last3= Thomas |first3= Peter D.|title= In Marx's Laboratory: Critical Interpretations of the Grundrisse | publisher= Koninklijke Brill NV | date=2013 |isbn= 978-90-04-23676-9 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ga7fAAAAQBAJ&pg=PA9 |page=9}}{{cite journal | last = Easterling | first = Stuart | title = Marx's theory of economic crisis | journal = International Socialist Review | issue = 32 | date = November–December 2003 | url = http://isreview.org/issues/32/crisis_theory.shtml | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20151110031916/http://isreview.org/issues/32/crisis_theory.shtml | archive-date = 10 November 2015 | access-date = 11 November 2015 | url-status = live }}

Fiction

=Literature=

The novella The Midas Plague by Frederik Pohl describes a world of cheap energy, in which robots are overproducing the commodities enjoyed by humankind. The lower-class "poor" must spend their lives in frantic consumption, trying to keep up with the robots' extravagant production, while the upper-class "rich" can live lives of simplicity.
The Mars trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson charts the terraforming of Mars as a human colony and the establishment of a post-scarcity society.{{Citation | last = Walter | first = Damien | title = Dear Ed Miliband … seek your future in post-scarcity SF | publisher = Guardian US | date = 11 October 2012 | url = https://www.theguardian.com/books/2012/oct/11/ed-miliband-post-scarcity-sf | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20151117023110/http://www.theguardian.com/books/2012/oct/11/ed-miliband-post-scarcity-sf | url-status = live | archive-date = 2015-11-17 }}
Beyond This Horizon
The Culture novels by Iain M. Banks are centered on a post-scarcity economy{{cite book |last= Banks|first= Iain M. |title= Consider Phlebas |publisher= Orbit|date= 1987|isbn= 978-0316005388|quote=He could not believe the ordinary people in the Culture really wanted the war, no matter how they had voted. They had their communist Utopia. They were soft and pampered and indulged, and the Contact section's evangelical materialism provided their consciencesalving good works. What more could they want? }}{{Citation | last1 = Parsons | first1 = Michael | last2 = Banks | first2 = Iain M. | title = Interview: Iain M Banks talks 'The Hydrogen Sonata' with Wired.co.uk | publisher = Wired UK | date = 16 November 2012 | url = https://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2012-11/16/iain-m-banks-the-hydrogen-sonata-review | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20151115171153/http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2012-11/16/iain-m-banks-the-hydrogen-sonata-review | archive-date = 2015-11-15 | url-status = live |quote=It is my vision of what you do when you are in that post-scarcity society, you can completely indulge myself. The Culture has no unemployment problem, no one has to work, so all work is a form of play.}} where technology is advanced to such a degree that all production is automated,{{cite web|url=http://www.futurehi.net/phlebas/text/cultnote.html |access-date=2015-11-23 |title=A Few Notes on the Culture |last=Banks |first=Iain M. |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120322183158/http://www.futurehi.net/phlebas/text/cultnote.html |archive-date=22 March 2012 }} Link is to an archived copy of the site that Banks linked to on his [https://web.archive.org/web/20120330000411/http://www.iain-banks.net/extras/resources/ own website]. and there is no use for money or property (aside from personal possessions with sentimental value).{{Citation | last1 = Roberts | first1 = Jude | last2 = Banks | first2 = Iain M. | title = A Few Questions About the Culture: An Interview with Iain Banks | publisher = Strange Horizons | date = 3 November 2014 | url = http://strangehorizons.com/2014/20141103/1banks-a.shtml | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20151124095805/http://strangehorizons.com/2014/20141103/1banks-a.shtml | archive-date = 24 November 2015 | quote = This is not say that Libertarianism can't represent a progressive force, in the right circumstances, and I don't doubt there will be significant areas where I would agree with Libertarianism. But, really; which bit of not having private property, and the absence of money in the Culture novels, have these people missed? | access-date = 23 November 2015 | url-status = dead }} People in the Culture are free to pursue their own interests in an open and socially-permissive society.
The society depicted in the Culture novels has been described by some commentators as "communist-bloc"{{cite book |last= Cramer & Hartwell|first= Kathryn & David G.|title= The Space Opera Renaissance |publisher= Orb Books|date=10 July 2007|isbn= 978-0765306180 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Dt5vmzs8hq4C&pg=PA298 |page=298 |quote= Iain M. Banks and his brother-in-arms, Ken MacLeod, both take a Marxist line: Banks with his communist-bloc 'Culture' novels, and MacLeod with his 'hard-left libertarian' factions.}} or "anarcho-communist".{{Citation | last = Poole | first = Steven | title = Culture clashes | work = The Guardian| date = 8 February 2008 | url = https://www.theguardian.com/books/2008/feb/09/fiction.iainbanks | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20151124050316/http://www.theguardian.com/books/2008/feb/09/fiction.iainbanks | url-status = live | archive-date = 2015-11-24 }} Banks' close friend and fellow science fiction writer Ken MacLeod has said that The Culture can be seen as a realization of Marx's communism, but adds that "however friendly he was to the radical left, Iain had little interest in relating the long-range possibility of utopia to radical politics in the here and now. As he saw it, what mattered was to keep the utopian possibility open by continuing technological progress, especially space development, and in the meantime to support whatever policies and politics in the real world were rational and humane."{{Citation | last = Liptak | first = Andrew | title = Iain M. Banks' Culture Novels | publisher = Kirkus Reviews | date = 19 December 2014 | url = http://www.kirkusreviews.com/features/iain-m-banks-culture-novels/ | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20151124222339/https://www.kirkusreviews.com/features/iain-m-banks-culture-novels/ | url-status = live | archive-date = 2015-11-24 }}
The Rapture of the Nerds by Cory Doctorow and Charles Stross takes place in a post-scarcity society and involves "disruptive" technology. The title is a derogatory term for the technological singularity coined by SF author Ken MacLeod.
Con Blomberg's 1959 short story Sales Talk depicts a post-scarcity society in which society incentivizes consumption to reduce the burden of overproduction. To further reduce production, virtual reality is used to fulfill peoples' needs to create.{{sfnp|Blomberg|1959}}
Cory Doctorow's novel Walkaway presents a modern take on the idea of post-scarcity. With the advent of 3D printing – and especially the ability to use these to fabricate even better fabricators – and with machines that can search for and reprocess waste or discarded materials, the protagonists no longer have need of regular society for the basic essentials of life, such as food, clothing and shelter.{{cite web | author = Gallagher | first = Sean | title = Cory Doctorow's Walkaway: Hardware hackers face the climate apocalypse | work = Ars Technica | publisher = Condé Nast | date = 25 April 2017 | url = https://arstechnica.com/the-multiverse/2017/04/cory-doctorows-walkaway-hardware-hackers-face-the-climate-apocalypse/ | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20170527115509/https://arstechnica.com/the-multiverse/2017/04/cory-doctorows-walkaway-hardware-hackers-face-the-climate-apocalypse/ | archive-date = 27 May 2017 | url-status = live | access-date = 2017-05-27}}{{cite book | last = Doctorow | first = Cory | author-link = Cory Doctorow | title = Walkaway | publisher = Head of Zeus | year = 2017 | isbn = 978-0-7653-9276-3}}

=Television and film=

The 24th-century human society depicted in the television series Star Trek: The Original Series, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Star Trek: Voyager and Star Trek: Enterprise, is a post-scarcity society brought about by the invention of the "replicator", a machine that converts energy to matter instantaneously.{{Citation | last1 = Fung | first1 = Brian | last2 = Peterson | first2 = Andrea | last3 = Tsukayama | first3 = Hayley | last4 = Saadia | first4 = Manu | last5 = Salmon | first5 = Felix | title = What the economics of Star Trek can teach us about the real world | newspaper = The Washington Post | date = 7 July 2015 | url = https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2015/07/07/what-the-economics-of-star-trek-can-teach-us-about-the-real-world/ | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20151117174048/https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2015/07/07/what-the-economics-of-star-trek-can-teach-us-about-the-real-world/ | archive-date = 17 November 2015 | access-date = 8 September 2017 | url-status = live }} In the film Star Trek: First Contact, Captain Jean-Luc Picard asserts: "The acquisition of wealth is no longer the driving force of our lives. We work to better ourselves and the rest of humanity."{{Citation | last = Baxter | first = Stephen | editor-last = Cockell | editor-first = Charles S. | contribution = The Cold Equations: Extraterrestrial Liberty in Science Fiction | contribution-url = https://books.google.com/books?id=MQScBAAAQBAJ&pg=PA11 | title = The Meaning of Liberty Beyond Earth | year = 2007 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=MQScBAAAQBAJ&pg=PA26 |page=26 | publisher = Springer Publishing | isbn = 978-3-319-09566-0 }} In this galaxy (at least the United Federation of Planets), money had been rendered obsolete on Earth by the 22nd century (although it still existed with reference to other species in the Star Trek universe, most notably the Ferengi).

References

{{Cite magazine |last=Blomberg |first=Con |date=December 1959 |title=Sales Talk |magazine=Galaxy |volume=18 |number=2 |url=https://archive.org/stream/galaxymagazine-1959-12/Galaxy_1959_12#page/n45/mode/2up |pages=48–59 |access-date=15 June 2014 }}
{{Cite book |last=Drexler |first=Eric K. |author-link=K. Eric Drexler |year=1986 |title=Engines of Creation |publisher=Anchor Books |url=http://www.e-drexler.com/d/06/00/EOC/EOC_Table_of_Contents.html |format=full text online |access-date=23 December 2006 |archive-date=24 January 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180124013625/http://e-drexler.com/d/06/00/EOC/EOC_Table_of_Contents.html |url-status=dead }} See also Engines of Creation.
{{Cite book |last=Marx |first=Karl |author-link=Karl Marx |translator-last=Nicolaus |translator-first=Martin |title=Grundrisse: Foundations of the Critique of Political Economy (Rough Draft) |others=Foreword by Martin Nicolaus |publisher=Penguin Books |date=1973 |isbn=0-14-044575-7}}
{{Cite book |last1=Peters |first1=Michael A. |author1-link=Michael Adrian Peters |last2=Marginson |first2=Simon |author2-link=Simon Marginson |last3=Murphy |first3=Peter |title=Creativity and the Global Knowledge Economy |publisher=Peter Lang Publishing |date=2009 |location=New York |isbn=978-1-4331-0425-1 }}
{{Cite book |last=Wood |first=John Cunningham |title=Karl Marx's Economics: Critical Assessments I |publisher=Routledge |date=1996 |isbn=978-0415087148 }}