From the Scarcity to the Positive 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. If the boundary conditions are respected, the model describes a positive abundance and thus a positive future for people, for nature and for the Earth: people are freed from want and compulsory labour, nature regains land and intact material cycles, and the Earth is relieved, because solar energy replaces fossil combustion and waste disappears into closed loops. The paper closes with a framework for action (five guiding principles and 17 sequenced steps for global organizations, states and communities). This record contains the working paper and the accompanying illustrated book "Near Future Forecast - The Path to Positive Abundance: A Guide for Humanity", each in six editions: English, German, Spanish, French, Japanese and Simplified Chinese (twelve PDF files). Scenario-based long-range forecast combined with established research; predictive and normative statements are marked as such. Version 1.1 (September 2026) adds Section 2.8 on Schumpeterian dynamics, complexity economics and open innovation to the working paper and updates the literature in Sections 2.2, 2.3 and 5.2 (89 references). The Spanish, French, Japanese and Simplified Chinese editions of both works are new in this version and were translated from the English edition; the book editions are otherwise unchanged from version 1.0. File names: working paper - Vom-Knappheits-... (DE), From-Scarcity-... (EN), Del-Sistema-... (ES), Du-Systeme-... (FR), Kishosei-... (JA), Cong-Xique-... (ZH); book - Near-Future-Forecast_... with the language-specific subtitle. v8 (version 1.1): working paper with new Section 2.8 (Schumpeterian dynamics, complexity economics, open innovation) and updated literature in Sections 2.2, 2.3 and 5.2. New Spanish, French, Japanese and Simplified Chinese editions of both the working paper and the book. German and English book editions unchanged apart from the version note.