From the Scarcity to the Abundance System: Solar Energy, Automation, and the Self-Domestication of Humankind as Drivers of a Transition to a Post-Capitalist Post-Scarcity Society

This working paper develops an integrated forecasting model for the transition of human societies from a scarcity system to an abundance system. Its starting point is that solar electricity follows a stable learning curve and is already the cheapest form of power generation. From near-zero-cost energy the paper derives - via automation, AI and closed material cycles - a decline of the marginal costs of key goods towards zero, so that money loses its function as the manager of scarcity. Three dynamics commonly read as threats are shown to be self-limiting: superfluous positional consumption, the population explosion (via the demographic transition), and interpersonal violence (primarily as a cultural civilising process; a genetic self-domestication component is treated as an uncertain, subordinate supplement). The favourable dynamics hold only within three boundary conditions - planetary boundaries, control over the orchestrating AI, and geopolitical justice between world regions - and raise inner questions of meaning, justice and macroeconomic stability. The technical transition appears largely determined over 80-120 years; what remains open and normative is solely its distribution - peaceful or contested. The paper closes with a framework for action (five guiding principles and 17 sequenced steps for global organizations, states and communities). A German-language version is included in this record.