How does a Utopian Society co-exist with Capitalism?

When I was much younger I used to read a lot more philosophy than I do today. Along the way I seem to recall reading some literature about Utopian Societies. I don't recall all of the details but I kind of think the theme was about a society that was so far advanced that no one 'had' to work.

There are a number of ways we could achieve a Utopian Society and, in many ways, we are getting closer all of the time. Of course, this is not true everywhere in the world, but it is certainly the case in many places. I am thinking of the number of jobs we have created that are 'information' based and don't involve any association with actually creating a physical good or product.

Since I have greatly benefited personally from this new form of employment, the information worker, I am especially thankful. My first jobs were working as a farm hand, a janitor, and a factory worker, so even today I really appreciate the fact that I get paid a healthy salary, primarily just to 'think' about problems.

That's a pretty sweet gig. However, the creeping Utopian Society seems to be threatening the livelihood of the information worker. That asshole Andrew Keen alluded to this in his bogus book 'The Cult of the Amateur'. He was wrong at face value, as these amateurs (a) have a legitimate voice to be heard and (b) have just as much right to shoot their mouths off as anyone else. However, the subtext of what he was getting as was that too much information was being given away for FREE!?

The amount of software we get to use completely for free simply boggles the mind! I'm using Blogger right now, an incredible piece of free software. Thousands of my photographs are hosted on someone else's servers using someone else's bandwidth to serve them.

I use the Google search engine entirely for free. I use Yahoo for free, including many incredible services offered there. I use Google Reader, Google Analytics, Wikipedia, and on and on. The list is nearly endless.

With Open Source I can now use products like Open Office, which means I never have to pay Microsoft money ever again for a copy of their office products.

Even when a company pays their software engineers to create incredible products they can no longer compete in a marketplace of entirely free applications.

Many of the products I use a free because they are 'advertiser' based. Every day, more and more and more products are announced using an advertiser based model.

Wait??? Who is advertising when everything is entirely for free?

And, is free a even bad thing? In the model of a Utopian Society all of the basic needs of every person are met, so each individual is allowed to turn their creative potential to improve society as a whole.

The open-source movement, and the myriad of other incredible products we get today entirely for free, certainly feel like that.

When I use an incredible piece of open source software, entirely for free, I wonder, I really, really, really, wonder, who are the guys that wrote this!!??? How did they do this without getting paid? Don't they need money to pay their bills, their health-care, take care of their family?

I truly do not understand this.

As more and more of our citizens, at least in this country, have jobs which have nothing to do with the essentials of production for our basic needs, how can we continue to sustain this if everything is entirely free?

I would love to write software and give it away free to everyone on the planet, especially if it would improve some aspect of their life in some way. My question is, how am I going to pay my bills if I do so?

And, how can businesses survive if so much incredibly high quality software continues to be created entirely for free?

I'm no expert at economics, but I'm pretty sure that the Open Source movement, and Google's advertising based model, are going to eat Microsoft for lunch in the next five years.

Personally, I work in computer games and we already face enormous competition from the fact that (a) there are tons of great and fun games available entirely free and (b) people only have so much leisure time to play just so many games.

I don't know where it is all heading, but I know what part of the solution is.

We need a way to provide effectively free energy to every single citizen on the entire planet to ultimately transform all of the world's economies into a truly Utopian ideal. If energy is free, then suddenly societies will be transformed to a point where the standard of living of every citizen would be nearly one of leisure.

Yes, people will still work, but they would more often work for the betterment of the society as a whole in a co-operative fashion.

With that vision in mind, let us review the two latest crack-pot free energy ideas to come to light. I already spoke about the whole burning salt-water nonsense in a previous post. Today, a new one surfaced about a 'miracle tube' that can produce 1.5 to 2 times as much thermal energy as electrical energy is put into it. This effect has, supposedly, been confirmed. But, wait just a minute, it involves a secret magical 'catalyst' to produce the effect. Considering the fact that the second law of thermodynamics remains intact even yet today, after centuries of claims of free energy devices, we are right to be skeptical. If the effect itself were to be proven true then, most likely, the secret magical catalytic source is the cause of the additional output and will be be exhausted and need to be replaced over time.

I agree with Trent, that the most likely source of free energy is going to be fusion; last I looked up into the Heavens it seems to be working quite well at a Universal level.

But, my vision is a bit more specific than that. I care not for massive power plants that work remotely. What I want is a device that can produce personal energy, something that would truly take every home in the world off of the grid and provide energy to the most remote locations on the planet entirely for free. I have no clue if such an invention would ever be devised, but it would be the single most powerful transformational creation in the history of human civilization. Nicola Tesla may have been bat shit crazy, but at least he had the right idea. This same vision consumed him for much of his life and I hope the open-source movement takes hold in the realm of energy production soon.

Let's say one of these wacky inventors comes along with something that has potential. Don't act like the egotistical Tesla and keep it a tightly held personal secret until you have achieved your own personal gains and glory. You should release it 'open-source' just like one of those nice pieces of free software we all use, so that the world can transform from the grass roots level.

Personally, I set my sights just a little bit lower. The last I checked, we have held, within our hands, the basic technology for a plug-in gas electric hybrid for *decades*. At the recent Frankfurt Auto-Show I was amazed at the number of energy efficient vehicles which were showcased by most of the automotive manufacturers.

You can complain about how the petroleum producers want to kill the electric car but, today, we truly live in global village, and what may work in the United States is not going to hold in Europe or elsewhere around the world. The plug-in gas electric hybrid will be a mainstream vehicle in the next five years, and within a decade I can easily imagine that the 'average' gas mileage of a vehicle, even in the US, could be over 40mpg.

That may not change the world, but it has got to be a good start.