This is part of what I'm wondering: how much do you have to give? Simply providing for basic needs is clearly unacceptable (in my opinion). Heck, try suggesting that someone go without cable TV to balance their budget and you'll get a bad reaction. Anyway, I think it would be undesirable to have a society in which there were two clear castes of haves and havenots even if the havenots did have all of their needs (medical, shelter, food. . .).
And then the problem becomes: as we move into this new economy, how do we parcel out this socialism? Majority rule would simply be tyranny and we can't have a functional society where there are two groups and one is 100x more wealthy than the other in a caste-like fashion. Still, those who produce need some reward and incentive. So, how would we do it?
The only thing that I can think of is land: land is the one thing that we can't actually produce with labor (despite Boston's Back Bay real estate). If the cost to produce a television is essentially nothing, there's no sense in restricting who gets one even if the design has to be done by an "upper-caste" person. However, land - and land in "cool" areas like Seattle or San Francisco - is in limited supply. Only certain people can live there. So, even if all goods and services can be provided for near $0, land can't.
To be honest, I think that this future will be kinda cool. I mean, if most/all of our material wants and needs are taken care of, we could hack away at projects we thought were interesting/fun. Our jobs could be what we find joy in - whether that be local theater or web apps. And I think that we would create value that way. Potentially not in the focused, reward-driven way that we do today, but lots of people come together around no money to do things even today. I'm not saying that we can replace our current economy like that, but at the point that we have wants and needs met for essentially $0, it seems like it would be fun. Frankly, in that kind of future, there doesn't seem to be a need to force people into things they might not like.
And then the problem becomes: as we move into this new economy, how do we parcel out this socialism? Majority rule would simply be tyranny and we can't have a functional society where there are two groups and one is 100x more wealthy than the other in a caste-like fashion. Still, those who produce need some reward and incentive. So, how would we do it?
The only thing that I can think of is land: land is the one thing that we can't actually produce with labor (despite Boston's Back Bay real estate). If the cost to produce a television is essentially nothing, there's no sense in restricting who gets one even if the design has to be done by an "upper-caste" person. However, land - and land in "cool" areas like Seattle or San Francisco - is in limited supply. Only certain people can live there. So, even if all goods and services can be provided for near $0, land can't.
To be honest, I think that this future will be kinda cool. I mean, if most/all of our material wants and needs are taken care of, we could hack away at projects we thought were interesting/fun. Our jobs could be what we find joy in - whether that be local theater or web apps. And I think that we would create value that way. Potentially not in the focused, reward-driven way that we do today, but lots of people come together around no money to do things even today. I'm not saying that we can replace our current economy like that, but at the point that we have wants and needs met for essentially $0, it seems like it would be fun. Frankly, in that kind of future, there doesn't seem to be a need to force people into things they might not like.
Maybe that's too hippy.