Abundance (Technocracy)

Abundance economics deals with situations where there are more than enough resources for everyone (i.e. an abundance). Such a situation (as in digital content) is termed a post scarcity economy.

Technocrats believe that classical economics cannot properly deal with abundance, since it only deals with the distribution of scarce resources. The Technocracy movement is of the opinion that, if faced with a situation of potential abundance, the Price system will practice Artificial scarcity or face economic collapse.

In classical economics, scarcity is said to exist because human wants are unlimited, but resources will always be limited. Therefore, wants can never be completely satisfied; using this model, abundance can never be achieved.

Under a Technocratic system, however, abundance and scarcity are not defined by human wants, but rather the ability of human beings to consume. While it is theoretically possible under a standard economic system to "own" any amount of goods, there is still a limited amount that a person can actually physically consume. For example, there is only so much food a person can eat, only so much time they can spend travelling (and given any existing set of technology, only so far they can travel per time period), only so much education they can partake of, only so much time spent in recreation, etc. Given these limits, it then becomes theoretically possible to satisfy all these needs and desires.

A closer look at the example of transportation can better illustrate this idea. Under a classical economic system, it is theoretically possible to own any number of cars, airplanes, and/or boats as a person can pay for or otherwise acquire. Thus, it is possible that they will never be able to own all that they want to have. Under a Technocratic system however, the entire transportation industry would be designed to provide every person with the maximum amount of service possible given available technology and resources. Thus, a person living in such a system would have access to various modes of transportation any time they wanted, and for whatever time period they would like. Travelling between cities (see Urbanate) could be easily accomplished with a high-speed rail system. For faster travel between points, air travel could be accessed when desired as well. For travel in less common ares or routes (such as off-road or camping sites), personal vehicles would be made available and could be "borrowed" when needed. However, no person would ever "own" a car, train, or aircraft. So while their ownership "wants" under classical economics remain unsatisfied, their transportation needs are completely fulfilled.

It would be the job of the Technate (or Technocratic administration system) to provide these services. It would use a resource-based method of accounting (such as Energy Accounting) to determine the exact needs and desires of the populous by carefully measuring the consumption of these services. It could then determine the most resource-efficient way of providing these services while keeping production up with consumption and avoiding waste. It is this concept that is central to Technocratic thought and the meaning behind its symbol, the Monad (Technocracy).

The only remaining question after this is whether or not a given area (such as the continent of North America) has the resources and technology to provide such an abundance. This was the point of the research performed by the Technical Alliance, and was called the Energy Survey of North America.

Other views

Discussions concerning the economics of abundance are not limited to members of the Technocracy movement. K. Eric Drexler mentions the investigations of Ruth Benedict in Chapter 11 of his book "Unbounding the Future" [http://www.foresight.org/UTF/Unbound_LBW/chapt_11.html] , quoting from Benedict's "Patterns of Culture". Stuart Chase has written on the economics of abundance in his book "The Economy of Abundance".

See also

* Technocracy Incorporated
* Conceptual economy
* Technocracy movement
* Energy Accounting
* Scarcity
* Post scarcity
* Technocratic views of the Price system