I have said this before: Technology is about people. Why does this catch-phrase seem so important to me? Because, simply, it stabs so many holes in the fabric of that which we have come to accept as truth.
The assumptions made constantly and persistently in our social, political, and economic environments have been left untouched for so long that many or most no longer think to question them: While mathematicians quarrel endlessly over the truth value of the axiom of choice, in any other field – particularly those fields which touch on our personal freedoms the most – the axioms laid out unknowingly by the thinkers of the last generations are never questioned deeply. While many will disagree with Smith or Marx, none or few would disagree with those assumptions that both made and neither mentioned.
Scarcity.

http://smari.yaxic.org/blag/2008/04/15/digital-fabrication-as-a-catalyst-for-freedom/

Smari on post-scarcity thinking… yep… now we’re talking.

Thoughts… I’m still a very industrial age guy. I’m not sure I’m going to get on the digital fabrication band wagon until the units are pretty close to consumer level… at 36, I’m definitely less able to rapidly fit my brain around concepts like “programmable matter” – increasingly it feels like work other people will do…

Interesting shift in perspective.

Is there an Institute or a Society for Post-Scarcity Economics?

If not, there should be.