A post-scarcity society is one where people can reliably meet basic needs and many goods or services are abundant or inexpensive enough that scarcity no longer dominates daily life. It does not mean that everything is free or unlimited: the definition depends on what counts as “enough,” who can access what is produced, and which scarcities remain.
What does post-scarcity mean?
“Post-scarcity” describes a threshold or ideal, not a universally certified condition. In a practical social sense, scarcity has receded when threats such as starvation are unlikely enough that they no longer shape ordinary decisions. In economic and political accounts, the phrase can instead refer to abundant production, low costs, or freedom from economic necessity.
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There is no standard test for declaring a society post-scarcity. The key disagreement is what counts as enough: enough to survive, enough for a decent life, or enough to include luxury and leisure. The National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIESR) frames the issue as whether a society can “produce enough,” while emphasizing that the threshold remains open to interpretation. NIESR’s discussion of post-scarcity makes that ambiguity central.
Different definitions emphasize different things
| Approach | What it means | What it does not establish |
|---|---|---|
| Basic-needs security | Basic survival threats, including starvation, are not likely enough to govern everyday choices. A 2023 peer-reviewed paper describes post-scarcity in these terms. Read the paper. | It does not imply that everyone has equal access to every good or that all wants can be met. |
| Production and “enough” | Society can produce enough to meet some chosen threshold, from survival needs to a more expansive standard of living. NIESR highlights the unresolved question of which threshold counts. | Production capacity alone does not show that people can afford or obtain what is produced. |
| Political and ethical change | Technology must be considered alongside social relations, security, freedom and opportunities for self-expression. In a Cambridge University Press chapter, Murray Bookchin argues that insecurity is shaped by social relations as well as scarce resources. Read the chapter. | It is a normative and political account, not proof that production has made every material resource abundant. |
| Sociological trends | Anthony Giddens used the term for emerging social trends, including greater focus on life decisions, manufactured risks and declining productivism. Read Giddens’s 1995 paper. | Giddens explicitly did not mean a distinct social order where all needs and wants are materially satisfied. |
How technology can create abundance—and why access matters
Technology can make particular goods easier or cheaper to produce and distribute. Digital information, for example, can often be copied at very low marginal cost. Open-source software and Wikipedia are examples of decentralized production discussed in the abundance literature. These cases show abundance in specific domains; they do not demonstrate universal material abundance.
Lower production costs also do not guarantee that everyone benefits. People still need income, rights or public provision to access goods. Laws and institutions influence who can make, own and distribute products, so the distribution of abundance is a central question, not an automatic result of technological progress. The 2023 paper discusses these governance and equality tensions.
What remains scarce?
Physical production still depends on material inputs, and some goods are limited by nature or competition. Giddens calls attention to “positional goods”: things whose value depends partly on being scarce relative to what others have. Desirable locations, attention and status can remain competitive even when other goods are plentiful. The Cambridge chapter also distinguishes the prospect of technology-enabled abundance from the social conditions needed to make it meaningful.
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- Land and location: There is a finite supply of desirable places.
- Attention and status: These are competitive because not everyone can receive the same recognition or access to a coveted position.
- Physical inputs: Making material goods requires resources, even when new production methods reduce costs.
Does post-scarcity mean everything is free?
No. “Post-scarcity” does not, by itself, mean that every good costs nothing, money becomes unnecessary, work disappears or conflict ends. Those are speculative possibilities or proposals, not part of the term’s minimum reliable definition. A society might make some essentials secure and many products inexpensive while still charging for goods, allocating limited resources or relying on paid work.
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When someone calls a society, technology or economy “post-scarcity,” ask what the claim actually covers:
- Threshold: Does “enough” mean survival, a decent standard of living, or luxury and leisure?
- Scope: Is the claim about selected goods and services, or about material abundance across society?
- Access: Does abundance mean that goods can be produced, that prices are low, or that people are guaranteed access?
- Remaining limits: Does the claim account for physical inputs, land, desirable locations and positional goods?
- Meaning of the term: Is it describing a technological or economic condition, or a broader political and sociological transformation?
Those distinctions matter because abundance in one area—such as digital information—cannot establish that people have secure access to necessities such as food, housing, energy or health care. Nor is there a reliable universal statistic or agreed threshold that identifies when a country has become post-scarcity.
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