 The Infinity Economy: The Blueprint for a Post-Scarcity CivilizationPitshou Moleka ()
Working Papers from HAL Abstract: Economic theory has long been governed by the principle of scarcity—an assumption that shapes the allocation of resources in virtually all historical economic systems. From classical economics, as articulated by Adam Smith in The Wealth of Nations (1776), to the critiques of capitalist frameworks offered by Karl Marx in Das Kapital (1867), scarcity has been the foundational pillar upon which economies have been constructed. Even in the 20th and 21st centuries, the models of Keynesian economics (Keynes, 1936) and neoliberal capitalism (Friedman, 1962) maintain that resource allocation is predicated on the limits imposed by scarcity, whether that scarcity is natural, human, or financial. However, the technological and systemic advances of the 21st century have begun to challenge this assumption, which, despite its dominance, no longer reflects the evolving nature of global economies. In the era of digital technologies, artificial intelligence (AI), and quantum computing, scarcity is increasingly being replaced by a new set of possibilities—an emergent paradigm defined by abundance and infinite scalability. Quantum computing offers the potential for processing power so vast that it could redefine the very nature of problem-solving. Simultaneously, AI-driven automation and digital decentralization are dismantling traditional models of labor, resource management, and value creation (Brynjolfsson & McAfee, 2014). Moreover, advancements in nanotechnology and synthetic biology could soon facilitate material abundance in previously unimaginable ways, fundamentally undermining traditional economic concerns about finite resources (Drexler, 2013). Blockchain technology, with its promise of decentralized finance (DeFi), is already challenging the very nature of money, while new models of governance enabled by AI and multi-agent systems are rethinking the need for centralized economic management (Helbing, 2015). This transformation signals the birth of a new economic model, one that transcends traditional notions of scarcity—what we term the Infinity Economy. The Infinity Economy represents a departure from existing paradigms of capitalism, socialism, and even post-capitalism (Piketty, 2014). It proposes a complete reimagining of how value is produced, exchanged, and distributed in a world increasingly defined by technological abundance. Rather than extending existing economic systems, the Infinity Economy seeks to eliminate the very foundations of economic thought—namely, scarcity and limited resource allocation—ushering in an era where value and wealth are no longer bound by finite constraints. Keywords: Low carbon economy; Space and Digital Economies; Decentralized autonomous organizations; Decentralized Finance; post scarcity; Resource scarcity; Water scarcity; infinity economy; Evolutionary ecology; Ecology; Climate-neutral economy; Resource-efficient economy; Environmental economy issue; Carbon economy; Green economy; National economy; Linear economy; Token Economy; Sustainable economy; Circular economy; Political economy; Economy (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:wpaper:hal-05109812 Access Statistics for this paper More papers in Working Papers from HAL |
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