Scarcity has been a constant of human existence.
I was initially tempted to say "since [time x]," but scarcity existed long before humans. In fact, every species has experienced scarcity, and every species will. There will always be something lacking--food, water, space, or time. The forms vary, but demand has always exceeded supply.
That might be about to change.
Historically, I've rejected the idea "post-scarcity economy" on principle. The universe is finite--the resources of our planet certainly are--so there can never be unlimited abundance. That said, technological advances mean that supply will soon exceed demand, making pseudo-post-scarcity (hereafter referred to simply as post-scarcity) possible.
Human nature being to reproduce, and the universe still being finite, this condition (probably) won't continue forever. However, it could go on for a very, very long time. We need to be thinking about it, but that's not the purpose of this post. For now, I'd just like to enumerate the forms of scarcity.
Scarcity of Energy
Energy underlies everything we do. Hunger is one of the most ubiquitous human afflictions, because we need constant energy inputs--food--to survive.
Plants get their energy from the sun, and their nutrients from the soil. They traded mobility for security, and as a consequence, became the bottom of the food chain. Other organisms found another way to operate, gaining both nutrients and energy by consuming other organisms. It's less efficient, but allows the consumer the freedom to move. That was the first step in gaining control over nature (but I digress).
The problem of food production has, in fact, been effectively solved. Famines and malnutrition are more a problem of distribution. However, the forms of energy needed proliferated greatly when we became a technological species.
But even the problem of energy production has been solved. Nearly unlimited energy from the nuclei of atoms is at our disposal. We call it nuclear and solar power.
Of course, you say, "but we don't have unlimited energy! That can't be right!" Again, the barriers are not in production, but in distribution. Enough uranium and thorium are present to power the world several times over, but nuclear generating stations are difficult and expensive to construct, thanks to overzealous regulators and so-called 'environmentalists.' Their preferred method, solar panels, is really just another sort of nuclear energy, using a reactor over a hundred million kilometers away. But solar panels are typically inefficient, and that energy is challenging to store or transport.
Developments in lithium batteries and superconductors present the possibility of practical solar power, and a more rational electorate would allow nuclear power to reach its potential. Even without the long-awaited invention of cold fusion, effective energy abundance can be achieved by the century's end.
Scarcity of Resources
Material goods have been the primary source of human competition for the majority of history. There are many causes for this, and it is not my purpose to discuss them here. We accept the fact as it is, and ask what it means for us.
Only so much arable land, potable water, building materials exist for humans to use. The things we use to shelter our bodies, produce our food, and entertain ourselves are fundamentally limited. Generally, the amount people require or desire has far exceeded the amount their environment can provide. Human ingenuity has solved this problem just as it has solved the problem of energy. Tools and materials our savanna ancestors could never have imagined using form the basis of a modern economy. Steel, coal, uranium, granite, petroleum are all but useless to supporting life, but we've made them work for our purposes.
All of these are still limited. Terra's natural resources must be divided, whether equally or unequally, among her human population. Making matters worse, the vast majority are unavailable to us. It is no exaggeration to say that Mars is closer to our own planet's core.
Remember that last sentence. We'll be coming back to it.
Scarcity of Labor
Labor actually hasn't always been scarce, so to speak, throughout history. If it were, we wouldn't have economically-illiterate progressives arguing to raise the minimum wage. In most western nations, actually, there's more people willing to do things than there are things to do.
Frontiers are the general exception to the rule, where work is plentiful but people are few and far between (at least, since we got the whole agriculture thing figured out). There are other reasons why so many people leave comfortable lives in the city to conquer the wilderness, but that itself is a big one.
Nevertheless, employers are always looking for ways to reduce the amount of labor they need (and laborers are always trying to get away with providing as little labor as possible). Neither of these are very productionist approaches to things, but it's the way most people operate. Automation has been the primary means for reducing labor costs--and, very soon, we may have complete automation of nearly everything.
This is quite frightening, both because of the AI implications, and the question of what we're all going to do when no human is needed to run the economy. I'll try tackling with these questions later in the post-scarcity series.
Scarcity of Time
Only one form of scarcity do I not see us overcoming within the next thirty years, and that is scarcity of time. I could be wrong about that, though.
We all have only so many cell divisions available to us. From the instant of conception we're racing against a biological clock. Healthy lifestyles can reduce the frequency of cell divisions, but there's no way (yet) to increase the number.
Other possibilities will be discussed down the road.
Conclusion
The universe is still finite, so some form of scarcity will always exist. However, there may be a time in the near future where supply far exceeds demand, and this is going to have some major social repercussions. To minimize the negative effects of drastic change, I believe it is vitally important to look ahead.
Will you?
