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emanresu
emanresu
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There certainly can be inequality and class warfare even in a post-scarcity society. The general reason that this is true is that scarcity is not the only source of such conflict (neither does scarcity ensure this type of conflict: some poor people are very peaceful, some rich people are very violent).

As was pointed out by T.E.D in an earlier answer you can still have people competing for status (and this seems to be a very real motivation, not just the stuff of fiction). So if there is a struggle for status, and if people differ in their abilities to attain status then you can have inequality. If it is possible for those who are better at attaining status to band together then you can have class warfare.

Here is an example of how this might work: It is possible that a society that is secure in terms of resources may begin to place an even higher emphasis on various artistic ventures. Art may be so important that a person's value in society is strongly tied to their artistic talent (whatever this art may be). If we posit that artistic ability is partly heritable, and if art is so important to status that it affects success (lets say that men and women in this society prefer to marry and mate with talented artists), then artistic talent will tend to pool into families.

If these families are constantly marrying between each other (because the talented artists want to marry other talented artists) then you have a condition conducive to creating an elite class.

To summarize:

It is possible to have inequality and class struggle in a post-scarcity society if members of that society compete for "status" and if the ability to compete for status is partly heritable.

As others have pointed out this competition for status in humans is almost certainly a result of biological evolution. The rationale being that status is correlated with scarce resources that are correlated with health and success. The tragedy is that even when resources are not scarce our mental hardware still inclines us to that type of competition (see for example How the Mind Works by Steven Pinker for more about evolution and psychology).

There certainly can be inequality and class warfare even in a post-scarcity society. The general reason that this is true is that scarcity is not the only source of such conflict (neither does scarcity ensure this type of conflict: some poor people are very peaceful, some rich people are very violent).

As was pointed out by T.E.D in an earlier answer you can still have people competing for status (and this seems to be a very real motivation, not just the stuff of fiction). So if there is a struggle for status, and if people differ in their abilities to attain status then you can have inequality. If it is possible for those who are better at attaining status to band together then you can have class warfare.

Here is an example of how this might work: It is possible that a society that is secure in terms of resources may begin to place an even higher emphasis on various artistic ventures. Art may be so important that a person's value in society is strongly tied to their artistic talent (whatever this art may be). If we posit that artistic ability is partly heritable, and if art is so important to status that it affects success (lets say that men and women in this society prefer to marry and mate with talented artists), then artistic talent will tend to pool into families.

If these families are constantly marrying between each other (because the talented artists want to marry other talented artists) then you have a condition conducive to creating an elite class.

To summarize:

It is possible to have inequality and class struggle in a post-scarcity society if members of that society compete for "status" and if the ability to compete for status is partly heritable.

There certainly can be inequality and class warfare even in a post-scarcity society. The general reason that this is true is that scarcity is not the only source of such conflict (neither does scarcity ensure this type of conflict: some poor people are very peaceful, some rich people are very violent).

As was pointed out by T.E.D in an earlier answer you can still have people competing for status (and this seems to be a very real motivation, not just the stuff of fiction). So if there is a struggle for status, and if people differ in their abilities to attain status then you can have inequality. If it is possible for those who are better at attaining status to band together then you can have class warfare.

Here is an example of how this might work: It is possible that a society that is secure in terms of resources may begin to place an even higher emphasis on various artistic ventures. Art may be so important that a person's value in society is strongly tied to their artistic talent (whatever this art may be). If we posit that artistic ability is partly heritable, and if art is so important to status that it affects success (lets say that men and women in this society prefer to marry and mate with talented artists), then artistic talent will tend to pool into families.

If these families are constantly marrying between each other (because the talented artists want to marry other talented artists) then you have a condition conducive to creating an elite class.

To summarize:

It is possible to have inequality and class struggle in a post-scarcity society if members of that society compete for "status" and if the ability to compete for status is partly heritable.

As others have pointed out this competition for status in humans is almost certainly a result of biological evolution. The rationale being that status is correlated with scarce resources that are correlated with health and success. The tragedy is that even when resources are not scarce our mental hardware still inclines us to that type of competition (see for example How the Mind Works by Steven Pinker for more about evolution and psychology).

Source Link
emanresu
emanresu
  • 181
  • 3

There certainly can be inequality and class warfare even in a post-scarcity society. The general reason that this is true is that scarcity is not the only source of such conflict (neither does scarcity ensure this type of conflict: some poor people are very peaceful, some rich people are very violent).

As was pointed out by T.E.D in an earlier answer you can still have people competing for status (and this seems to be a very real motivation, not just the stuff of fiction). So if there is a struggle for status, and if people differ in their abilities to attain status then you can have inequality. If it is possible for those who are better at attaining status to band together then you can have class warfare.

Here is an example of how this might work: It is possible that a society that is secure in terms of resources may begin to place an even higher emphasis on various artistic ventures. Art may be so important that a person's value in society is strongly tied to their artistic talent (whatever this art may be). If we posit that artistic ability is partly heritable, and if art is so important to status that it affects success (lets say that men and women in this society prefer to marry and mate with talented artists), then artistic talent will tend to pool into families.

If these families are constantly marrying between each other (because the talented artists want to marry other talented artists) then you have a condition conducive to creating an elite class.

To summarize:

It is possible to have inequality and class struggle in a post-scarcity society if members of that society compete for "status" and if the ability to compete for status is partly heritable.