Actually, there’s very good reason to believe that our economics and economic assumptions are simply a temporary current phenomenon. Advances in science and engineering are shrinking the need for labor. Much, much more is being produced with less and less labor. And this trend is accelerating.

We can soon expect limitless near free energy, from that fusion reactor in the sky, the Sun. We can expect genetic techniques to eliminate a host of illness at birth. And we can expect the collapse of economic systems built on the assumption of scarcity—that is, the end of capitalism and socialism.

Because scarcity is ending. And we as a civilization will be free to do as we please by, for example, exploring the cosmos.