Delete comment from: Captain Capitalism
Your scenario is plausible; indeed, it is partially realised today, and would be more closely realised if it weren't for leftists. Again, it was partially realised in Roman society in late Republican and more particularly early Imperial times. People in the upper class devoted themselves to the arts, to sex, and to the pleasures of the table. Power politics weren't very interesting because the Emperor looked after that, and it was dangerous to get involved. Every type of sex proliferated, in particular sex with boys, but everything went. And it was much too much effort to raise children. So the upper class declined. To be fair to them, certain of the Emperors such as Tiberius did murder a lot of them.
It lasted a long time, but eventually external forces brought about change. In the first instance the Germanic invaders ended the Western Roman empire, and then much later the rise of the Slavic region weakened the Eastern empire, which was finished off by the Turks in 1453. But it had a long run for its money.
Nov 5, 2013, 10:17:43 PM
Posted to Why Post-Scarcity Economics is Scary