Path: utzoo!censor!geac!torsqnt!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!wuarchive!bcm!dimacs.rutgers.edu!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!nanotech From: lovejoy@alc.com (Alan Lovejoy) Newsgroups: sci.nanotech Subject: Re: Nanotech Economy Message-ID: Date: 5 Dec 90 04:00:07 GMT Sender: nanotech@athos.rutgers.edu Organization: Ascent Logic Corporation; San Jose, CA Lines: 38 Approved: nanotech@aramis.rutgers.edu In article Jim_Day.XSIS@xerox.com writes: >If nanotechnology eventually makes the production of material goods so easy >that production costs are essentially nil, will that mean that everything will >be free? Not likely. Software can be replicated now for next to nothing, but >I haven't noticed the price of commercial software dropping much as a result. > >Even if material goods were available without cost, people would still have to >pay for many other things. There will always be a market for motion pictures, >music, sporting events, and other forms of entertainment, and it seems unlikely >that public utilities and services will ever be provided free of charge. Money is a mechanism for allocation of "scarce" resources (where scarce means "not enough for everbody all the time without rationing or other means of controlling usage and consumption"). Prices will be put on those things that need to be allocated. Everything else will be free. Unfortunately, the need for allocation may be imposed artificially by monopoly power, social custom, statutory decree or even armies, police and weapons. Nanotechnology is a tool whose handle will fit anyone's hand. It can be used both to evade present-day constraints--and to impose new ones. Even today, unemployment, poverty, illiteracy, under-nutrition, hunger and other "social" ills exist more for sociopolitical reasons than for physico-technical ones. Socialism does not fail because it is not in harmony with physics, but rather because it is not in harmony with human psychology. The behavior of individuals in socialist economies sabotages the grand and pure goals of socialist society--regardless of the wealth or technological prowess of the society. Drastic changes in human society depend far more on drastic changes in human psychology than they do on any external changes. Technology may change the types of toys and the number of toys, but it does not change the rules of the game unless it also changes the heads of the players. P.S. Yes, I'm back on the net after a six month absence. (Formerly, alan@pdn.paradyne.com). Brought to you by Super Global Mega Corp .com