Here is a quote from "Profiles of the Future," chapter 13, describing a world in which "replicators" supply all material goods in unlimited amounts.
"When material objects are all intrinsically worthless, perhaps only then will a real sense of values arise. Works of art would be cherished because they were beautiful, not because they were rare. Nothing—no "things"—would be as priceless as craftsmanship, personal skills, professional services. One of the charges often made against our culture is that it is materialistic. How ironic it will be, therefore, if science give us such total and absolute control over the material universe that its products no longer tempt us, because they can be too easily obtained. It is certainly fortunate that the replicator, if it can ever be built at all, lies far in the future, at the end of many social revolutions. Confronted by it, our own culture would collapse speedily into sybaritic hedonism, followed immediately by the boredom of absolute satiety. Some cynics may doubt if any society of human beings could adjust itself to unlimited abundance and the lifting of the curse of Adam—a curse which may be a blessing in disguise. Yet in every age, a few men have known such freedom, and not all of them have been corrupted by it. Indeed, I would define a civilized man as one who can be happily occupied for a lifetime even if he has no need to work for a living. This means that the greatest problem of the future is civilizing the human race; but we know that already. . . ." This is the best book about the future I know of. A review of it by me and Mallove is here: http://www.lenr-canr.org/acrobat/RothwellJreviewofpr.pdf Clarke does not discuss the economic aspects of this. One book that does is Rifkin, "The End of Work." I do not think much of Rifkin but he makes valid points here. - Jed
