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You know, here are my thoughts on this. Please contribute, and if you feel that I am in error, then please correct me. Ok, here we go.

If you take a class in economics, you quickly learn that the concept of scarcity is central to an economy. That is, there is not enough 'stuff' to go around. I think you get the idea. Now, what if through technology we could eliminate scarcity (like through a replicator). All of the sudden everyone has what they want, and they have enough of it. If that were the case, I would argue that capitalism could no longer exist. Fundamentally, capitalism is built upon the notion of scarcity because the result is an economic stratification.

Please tell me what you think about that.

The economy would shift to intellectual valuables, like designing and engineering, and stuff that is not made by machine but rather through the will of man. This will, ofcourse, benefit everyone, because the number of jobs will go up. Why? because, in your system, everything is free and thus all possible wants can be fulfilled, to the extent of the design behind them, so there will be lots more people working to put together the ideas and designs behind it all.

Education standards will become higher, because you wont be able to work as a total failure at McDonalds or elsewhere, as they wouldnt need workers or might not even exist. But you'd need to pay taxes, pay for replicator raw feedstock, etc, so you'd need money, hence a job. Which means you need an education.

Then theres also programming, which will never be automated.

The futurist writer Alvin Toffler actually deals alot with the idea of such an information economy. Much of the US, and many first world nations, are moving over to such an economy, because of automation (almost no factory workers, except as overseers, etc). A vast majority of firstworld economies are based on what services I can provide for you, or arrange to be provided, that dont require much if any physical labor. Office jobs, mostly. Not many people do physical work anymore.

Same thing with replicators, only to a larger extent.

I think you get the idea. Now, what if through technology we could eliminate scarcity (like through a replicator). All of the sudden everyone has what they want, and they have enough of it.

I would gess the fulfillment of all needs is impossible. As the standard of living rises, you get new needs.

Just take the human history so far: If you would show a human from the stone ages what we have today, he would think there is nothing left to desire: we have it allways warm, we are never hungry, thirsty etc.

Needs that were impossible to think of just a few centuries ago have risen:
Who would have thought that it could be a desire not to become fat in times when people had barely enough to eat?
People wanted to have white skin, because the farmers had brown skin because of their work outside, and if you had whiter skin it showed that you don´t need to work outside. Nowadays if you are brown it means that you have the time to lie around in the sun, the money to visit foreign countries etc.
You could endlessly go on like that.

New need arises despite everybody today is doing better than anybody a few hundred years ago. Examples:

Sure I´d like to have as much land as a medieval noble, but I wouldn´t like to have his low live time expectation, his parasites, his diseases which couldn´t be treated etcetcetc.

Sure Mr. Daimler was the undisputed king of the hill when he had the only car in the world. But mine is faster, more comfortable, has air conditioning, and surely a better stereo . And still I would like to have a better one...

So as a citicen of the federation I would have some desires left: Starting with eating real food, drinking real beer instead of replicated crap. This would still have a value. Perhaps I would like to have my own shuttle, my own land instead of a standard living quarter etcetc.

Conclusion: Scarcity will remain as long as human being exist.

Yes, I know that scarcity will remain. The premise of my statements were to take the notion that it has been eliminted. Ok, let's try again. What if it WERE to be elimintated?

What if the sky were green?

Superman wrote:Yes, I know that scarcity will remain. The premise of my statements were to take the notion that it has been eliminted. Ok, let's try again. What if it WERE to be elimintated?

As in through something like elemental transmutation? Then as people said, you'd still need people to design better processes. Much higher value would be placed on entertainment. Or do you mean like, we genuinely have everything we could ever want? Every process is now as efficient as it can possibly be, and we have powerful AIs with perfect understanding of the human psyche churning out new TV, plays, games and movies? Then we've basically got The Culture.

If everyone has everything they want, the wondrous world of Marketing will be able to convince people to buy things they don't want.

Superman wrote:Yes, I know that scarcity will remain. The premise of my statements were to take the notion that it has been eliminted. Ok, let's try again. What if it WERE to be elimintated?

I don’t think that’s possible. Humans are greedy and most would never be fully satisfied.

It was brought up that one needs acces to replicator feed stock, a kind of municipal utility.

Wouldn't be far simpler to have one's own supply of stock in the basement in tanks? This of course assuming one actually posseses one's own house.

In the movies and TV series I don't recall ordinary citizens being assigned some kind of standardized living quarters, but homes.

Captain Kirk had a house in the woods in Generations.
Captain Sisko recalled how he would beam from Starfleet Academy to his bedroom so he can come down to eat dinner with the family at home.
Ensign Kim had some kind of Brownstone apartment in the old quarter of San Francisco in an alternate timeline.
The holographic family the EMH made was apparently a split level ranch.

In the movies and TV series I don't recall ordinary citizens being assigned some kind of standardized living quarters, but homes.

Actually, we see Ensign Kim in an alternative timeline living in a multy-storey building, as well as Lt. Barcley. But I agree, I don´t have enough evidence to prove it.

We see some characters talking about their retirement plans, like Cpt. Sisko. But one cannot conclude from the possibilities of high-ranking Starfleet officers to the possibilities of simple citicens, OTOH. We never see regular citizens and their living conditions described in details. Settlers on outposts do not represent them, too.

BabelHuber wrote:

In the movies and TV series I don't recall ordinary citizens being assigned some kind of standardized living quarters, but homes.

Actually, we see Ensign Kim in an alternative timeline living in a multy-storey building, as well as Lt. Barcley. But I agree, I don´t have enough evidence to prove it.

We see some characters talking about their retirement plans, like Cpt. Sisko. But one cannot conclude from the possibilities of high-ranking Starfleet officers to the possibilities of simple citicens, OTOH. We never see regular citizens and their living conditions described in details. Settlers on outposts do not represent them, too.

The only housing we ever see is either rural, in the case of Picard's family or Kirk's uncle's ranch. Or totally urban like Barclay's or Kirk's apartment. We have not seen anything like a "suburb". I doubt they would totally disappear. Even though our current cities are built around the car, and cars probably no longer exist in TNG, I dont think that entire neighborhoods would be destroyed.