See, now this is completely different than the original explanation...  X(

See, here's the thing: that world is definitely a possibility, and I would say an inevitability.  As technology advances, natural resources are becoming less and less important, simply because knowledge is allowing people to get around the need for the resources, either through finding alternatives or by finding ways to stretch out the resources that do exist.  As such, we're seeing in today's society that those who rely on natural resources as the key to their wealth are increasingly being marginalized.  Nations that were considered to have fairly good farmland now find that the application of technology has rendered nature's gifts obsolete.

If it is as you describe, that vision isn't calling for anything crazy.  Here's why:
As society advances further technologically, natural resources become less and less important, with technology either duplicating or stretching the use of formerly natural resources.  From an economic perspective, this means those resources will be increasing in supply, while demand remains relatively constant.

I think it may be terribly faulty to call this a "Resource-based economy."  "Resource-based" implies that resources play the central role in that economy.  The modern economy is based on acquisition of resources.  Or, if you don't want to believe that, ancient barter systems were "resource-based economies."  Currency is simply a tool in that end, and a tool which apparently has distracted you enough to miss it.  The economy you describe, however, works to mitigate the value of the resource by making physical objects as plentiful as possible.  It's anything but resource-based.  The only measure of wealth in a society would be through knowledge, and/or possibly a "favor" system of services to evolve later, since physical wealth is rendered obsolete.

As for the feasibility of said society, the only questions are as follows:

1: Is modern technology able to create said society?  If not, what would need to be developed?
2: What problems would exist in the interim.  No matter how such a society will evolve, the transition would involve a huge social upheaval of some sort.  The model I described would probably involve a huge global recession as businesses are completely reorganized, and actually has a possibility of falling into a dystopia if whatever technologies that promise said benefits are monopolized early on.

In short... coming up with utopian societies is the easy part.  Presenting a plan to get there... that's the hard part.

My response to that would require me seeing the rest of your response, so I wait...

"We have arrived at a time when new innovations in science and technology can easily provide abundance to all of the world

Hmm... Phoenix underlines an interesting issue.  Anthropologists have long made cases that population growth (at least the birth-level numbers) are based largely on economics.  Lesser developed, agricultural nations tend to have higher birth rates because children are seen as short term investments (after a few years, they can start working on the farm and such).  In contrast, in Western nations, population growth is flat, if not declining, largely because children go through education for 18+ years, and are huge economic liabilities until then.  Thus, if you remove that economic liability, the behavior reaction is apparent: huge population growth levels would strain whatever surplus did exist.

That being said, there is one question that I must ask: Can technological growth outpace population growth in which parents would be under the impression that they can have whatever resources they want, and thus can have as many children as they want?  I would guess that it's possible technology could outpace population growth, as technological growth is also an exponential growth model.  However, personally, I think we need more time to give technology a leap forward before any transition to this economy model (which I still argue should not be called "resource-based").

> Godwin's Law wrote:

> Hmm... Phoenix underlines an interesting issue.  Anthropologists have long made cases that population growth (at least the birth-level numbers) are based largely on economics.  Lesser developed, agricultural nations tend to have higher birth rates because children are seen as short term investments (after a few years, they can start working on the farm and such).  In contrast, in Western nations, population growth is flat, if not declining, largely because children go through education for 18+ years, and are huge economic liabilities until then.  Thus, if you remove that economic liability, the behavior reaction is apparent: huge population growth levels would strain whatever surplus did exist.

There is no one paradigm for such complicated real life matters. We have low birthrates in our western nations in spite of essentially living in a situation of superabundant resources. The fact that we don't need children as little moneymakers and that we have access to birth control resources allows us to pick the number of children we are comfortable with. Raising a child is not just an economic investment but also a very heavy physical and psychological one. Every individual attaches his or her weight to the benefits of these investments. If you take out financial cost they decision will still influenced by non-economic costs. Most people only want to bring up a relatively small amount of children (say a number ranging from 0-3) if they can freely decide on the matter. Economic, religious or cultural influences aside not many people want to raise up a huge number of children (as indicated by our low birthrates in the west). How much of our low birthrates is attributable to opportunity costs (I want scores of children but maaaaan I don't want to toil and toil for them) is up in the air of course.

>That being said, there is one question that I must ask: Can technological growth outpace population growth in which parents would be under the impression that they can have whatever resources they want, and thus can have as many children as they want?  I would guess that it's possible technology could outpace population growth, as technological growth is also an exponential growth model.  However, personally, I think we need more time to give technology a leap forward before any transition to this economy model (which I still argue should not be called "resource-based").

I don't think there's any question that the theoretically possible population growth caused by technology growth *can* outpace actual population growth. But the intuitive mistake to make is to look at it black and white. There will be periods where technological growth leads to a watershed event that allows huge growth potential (e.g. the use of modern fertilizers in agriculture and modern medicine), and there could be periods when growth is pushing or even exceeding the boundaries of what technology can provide for.

The notion that we have reached a point in time where present day technology could provide for limitless wealth on earth is patently absurd of course. They should have really included a paragraph concerning the problem of finite resources and the dangers of exponential growth in resource and energy consumption.

Finally their idea to eliminate waste regarding logistics chains is disingenuous. Do you think Wal-Mart wants x% of its fresh produce to be unfit for consumption even before it reaches its stores? Of course not... And their statement on eliminating shortages or overproduction?? Yeah Wal-Mart really wants to run out of unexpectedly popular products just to spite its customers, and factories like to overproduce products just so they can let them sit around rotting in expensive storage facilities. Really the writers of that text in the OP seem to have little to no idea of concepts like entropy and imperfect information. Padding it over with omg but we'll computerize and technologizamize and the next day we'll have an infinite amount of goods and services per square inch of the planet!!!! is pretty disingenuous...

Also (finally finally if you wish) the above is really not problematic for me at all, if this economy can provide me with an infinite amount of beautiful prostitutes that is.

> Phoenix Mailer wrote:

> "We have arrived at a time when new innovations in science and technology can easily provide abundance to all of the world