Post-scarcity/How do we get from here to there?
In a sentence: by increasing the amount of physical goods and information available for free until it makes no sense for anyone to keep the scarcity-based economy in existence.
Imagine a world where you can grow all your own food in a small greenhouse, in a largely automated system. Your water falls freely from the sky and is filtered and cleaned automatically. Any time you want a new electronic gizmo, you can find a design online and make it without difficulty. The kids have access to the best education ever conceived, for free. You have abundant free electricity from the sky. What need would you have to engage with the monetary economy?
The situation sketched above is not a vision of the future at all; it is the current reality. All these things are already available for free, but few people are aware of it, fewer are doing it and it takes too much work and requires too many compromises. Right now, open-source hardware is, in some cases, of lower quality than commercial hardware. Fabrication is too costly and requires too much complex machinery and expertise. Wonderful open educational resources are out there, but are not properly organized into a comprehensive, easy-to-navigate curriculum.
The way to bring about a global post-scarcity economy and to make it the only game in town is simply to add to the commonly-held resources of mankind until they become indisputably better than, or as good as, commercial resources. Learn how to grow your own food and give the seeds and the exact method of growing away for free on the Internet. Contribute to open-source educational materials. If you can program, contribute to open-source software projects. If you have any idea about engineering, contribute to open-source hardware projects. Use open resources yourself, note whatever problems you have with them, and correct them or else bring them to the attention of an expert who can correct them. Bring open projects to the attention of architects, researchers, engineers and programmers. Print fliers about an open-source project like RepLab and drop them in university engineering lecture halls. If you can sew and make clothes, post sewing patterns online. If you know about a lot about chemistry or Egyptian history or flamingoes, improve Wikipedia or open educational material. Focus on quality. You don't have to do all the contribution yourself; get your friends to help. Even get your acquaintances to help. Connect those with design skill to those with design projects. Study whatever you're passionate about and think how you can use it to add value to all mankind.
By adding to this pool of resources, you make it easier for people to build their own abundance. And the easier it becomes to live a life of abundance and leisure without any need for the monetary economy, the more people will do it. Thousands of people have dropped out of the monetary economy onto organic farms, but that simple, pastoral lifestyle is not to everyone's taste. Post-scarcity will not come about until it is possible to live a life of abundance and leisure outside of the economic system without making significant sacrifices in their quality of life.
Lead by example. Use the information available to you to find a solution to your needs of water and energy and food and shelter. Once you have solved your basic needs without reliance on the monetary system, move it up a notch and solve your wants of clothes and furniture and electronics without reliance on the monetary system. And always contribute, contribute. Of course, like some strange tribe, you will need to come to an agreement to trade with the civilized men around you and co-exist with them. You will need money at first, but as you work things out you will become more and more independent, more and more resilient. And keep contributing, contributing, making it easier for others to follow your trail. Don't do all this alone; do it with your friends. It's much more fun that way.
Social change doesn't come by decree from the politicians' halls. It always comes from the bottom up, from the young vibrant minds who see clearly and see, "There's a better way to do things". That is how post-scarcity must come about, from the kids. What if a million or ten million kids around the world dropped out of the monetary system and started living their own lives, able to make for themselves all the things to fulfill their usual needs, and passing around, among a global network, the things for their unusual needs. And what if the kids still in the monetary system started to see that the drop-outs were healthier, better-educated, had all this leisure and free time and spent it making rhythms and forging art and were having so much more fun than anyone could in a rat-race scene?
Who knows?
There was a fantastic universal sense that whatever we were doing was right, that we were winning. And that, I think, was the handle -- that sense of inevitable victory over the forces of old and evil. Not in any mean or military sense; we didn't need that. Our energy would simply prevail. We had all the momentum; we were riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave. So now, less than five years later, you can go up on a steep hill in Las Vegas and look west, and with the right kind of eyes you can almost see the high water mark -- that place where the wave finally broke and rolled back.
